From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Michael Heerdegen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27? Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:16:52 +0100 Message-ID: <87r2q1r1tn.fsf@web.de> References: <83o9l6bhfs.fsf@gnu.org> <1fedc60d-35a7-4ff0-adbb-b6b8306d192f@default> <83wozu9f6r.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1517706940 25482 195.159.176.226 (4 Feb 2018 01:15:40 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2018 01:15:40 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/27.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cc: npostavs@users.sourceforge.net, Drew Adams , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 04 02:15:35 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1ei8tt-0005Zb-W6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:15:22 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42552 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ei8vu-0001jl-UD for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Feb 2018 20:17:26 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:53560) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ei8vg-0001jG-Rv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Feb 2018 20:17:13 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ei8vf-0001iZ-SP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 03 Feb 2018 20:17:12 -0500 Original-Received: from mout.web.de ([212.227.15.14]:53696) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ei8vc-0001dQ-0y; Sat, 03 Feb 2018 20:17:08 -0500 Original-Received: from drachen.dragon ([92.74.163.15]) by smtp.web.de (mrweb001 [213.165.67.108]) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0MHYHE-1ejEK10Jum-003KvQ; Sun, 04 Feb 2018 02:16:53 +0100 In-Reply-To: <83wozu9f6r.fsf@gnu.org> (Eli Zaretskii's message of "Sat, 03 Feb 2018 19:05:32 +0200") X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:ykriunL/PSJSewOtbjNE6HJZp3GZn8rbZyWWWJMALWxdOr3TeDS qLJuFnTN1odQYx8aHB/qrFD9rVADjKx9Ha/2qurUsY0QISn47xQsVhnd6tPl3oCXrRpA19/ iSzgvQ6IWJkKp42sTuuRPLeTxyBY0AGMMwnvA+1YlQLypoxoT/tbGX6G6BkeM/teUW7L4XV 1wPjLhr0ckwa52RmE+N9A== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:JMRTFiauXy4=:l9Nv3jEKSvdbA19xZReO3X xuHEbXI1hk5UAXDS+HCzOtOvHwJdD6zWNTnameXpJOH7Vos7Q2KOYnE5us20ZxDT+7DXqYXPg 7ECok+9cJjx9LS9x9C6W8iBORWodUVaQcLJg6/bf8AZmilK7SptpNGEgfH8VcXzhbrdMczbIu sSUuBRaFhtr7wo5r34ivm6ZCq0SOvVqZYfk+nOIdpGtIOPjAd3DSDXQSzH/u7kR398mb+fvtP 6i4Bq2vH/T12oTN3pL3liWOEYDrymo6GY1VjkAS/ah5cuYKlU4xQq8YADYvdOSkufSR2JKKLo INjAu9o2RVwMsCQh8WdQ1xhI86FAKanwNqyagjMmNfz6WFU/MLh/zuNf7ASwanLu05NyUdVuR Rkpw5PVhr9jTdYYNtdB6oN/QVK50/qlrMtXU+h/c97/40xp75G9YUPG+fDOZU6EsxCa+kOJ73 be8W9y7gCz8NRsUamzBn7gmZRIX9Uzp/++HwBh9nVw5Bj0Spe5GJnCpi+7Em1GJSSykQbdd6a 0y4GaZPaFFBtiYcqY+05e+fPoyz24ETRphEG0ENy6nayemjKP/QgZ6iQ5Dxt9kEMOq6HTTP6/ orjYWzK+D6e8cEkgMKKL54F34UdSDKx9JhAJRioEPZW3zSh3Q3qnFx9IPD342/kA0I/famP3b JJ2J7ESgykp+5mwexfwnSJ9kgwMBFwAPvyK+hwJjv2RF4/GRM4ESsaqvM5RKJS30JiKRpkhBN 4OPhzvYdUkx0ECisviRfDX2dj8Cz2AJawiJBU8lgdwuqRpEM2hNEDnlLd9mDP10yT+rmO8oq X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 212.227.15.14 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:222477 Archived-At: Hello, Helpfulness of error messages surely depends on the beholder, and on expectations. In my eyes, > Symbol's value as variable is void: '=D0=B0bbrevs-changed is quite clear: you think this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ is a quoted thing, but the error message calls it a symbol. So there must be a problem with that quote, it has obviously gotten read as part of the symbol. Sure, you have still to find out why. OTOH > > (invalid-read-syntax "strange quote" "=E2=80=99") also doesn't say what's wrong with that quote. It even calls something a quote where there is none. The error message is confusing. Repeating the pseudo quote character in the error message doesn't make it look less like a quote. > I think you are so eager to make your point that you are willing to > claim that black is white and vice versa. Any objective person would > agree that the new error message is more directly pointing to the root > cause Are you really sure that every Emacs user would expect that we modify the Lisp reader to catch typos? FWIW, we already modified the Lisp reader to catch another style issue (to get rid of old-style backquotes) and made it error. It broke my stuff (el-search) horribly - though I don't use old-style backquotes, and for code that also doesn't use them. Now I need to work around `read' and define my own `read' function. I also need to remember for a long time that using `read' is forbidden in my library. I even implemented a minor mode to warn me just about that: it warns me that I use `read' and it's forbidden. Otherwise, I would get strange errors when using my stuff, from time to time, whenever I added a `read' by accident. All other users of my package, too. And believe me, _these_ error messages are then less understandable than > Symbol's value as variable is void: '=D0=B0bbrevs-changed. Misusing something fundamental as the Lisp reader to catch such stuff should be the very last resort. The result can get much more confusing in situations we now don't think about. > > Lisp doesn't have a bug here. > That's a strawman, and you know it. We are talking about diagnostics > for bugs in Lisp programs. I think it's a eligible argument. Drew just thinks it's the wrong fix. He may also think that no fix would maybe suffice. That's ok, and I think he made some good points. We should discuss about alternative approaches to move forward. People often paste stuff into scratch or the M-: prompt that they copied from elsewhere. Maybe we could make M-: and C-x C-e check for this problem. These could also check for other, similar frequent problems. Any better suggestions? Michael.