RE: How to opt out of curly-quote spamming altogether?

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > This is not about "displaying one character as another."  It is
> > about choosing how to present inline code fragments.
> 
> But an Info manual uses the quotes not only in code fragments, it
> uses them, for example, when defining new terminology and when
> describing keyboard input.

Yes, and none of those uses have anything to do with the use of a
curly quote to represent _itself_.  They are all cases of what I have
been calling "setting off inline code".  In other doc systems they
would have an underlying markup (e.g., XML element) that distinguishes
them, structurally, from ordinary text.  And typically they would not
just all use the same markup/element: code would use, say, <Code>,
new terminology would use, say, <GlossaryTerm>, and so on.

But whether they all are represented structurally/semantically the
same way or not, they perform the task of setting off their contents
semantically.  They cannot be confused with ordinary text.

And then there is how these semantic critters are presented finally.
Typically, presentation is a separate layer or process, and the
same structure/content can be, by choice, presented in different
ways (for different media, among other things).  Inline code is
typically presented using a fixed-width font, such as Courier, as
opposed to ordinary text, which is typically presented using a
proportional font.  Glossary terms might be presented using bold
or colored text, perhaps linked to a glossary entry.  And so on.

Anyone used to LaTeX or Tex is used to this separation, for example.
I'm surprised if Texinfo/makeinfo does not provide for it - if an
inline code snippet or key binding necessarily ends up with a
presentation that is identical to ordinary text quoting (curly
quotes, whether single or double).
 
> > It is not about substituting for literal curly quotes everwhere,
> > as I made clear.
> 
> I'm sorry, but nothing is clear about what you described.

Maybe you're not trying to understand?

> I should probably stop replying, as my attempt at helping you is
> quickly slipping into another annoying discussion, where you hold me
> responsible for some crime I didn't commit.

There's no crime, only a regression for users. I cannot say who or
what is responsible, nor does it matter what I think about that.
It may be tools (e.g. Texinfo) that are responsible.  It may be
changes implemented recently - or both.

For users, things have gone downhill, IMHO.  What was a pretty
clear separation of code (and keys and URLs etc.) from the
surrounding text has been lost.  Some people don't like the retro
look of `...', but that's not really the point.  I would be happy
if some other, straightforward, easy-to-use means were adopted for
setting off such thingies from the surrounding text.

But note that Emacs doc is not used _only_ the way other doc is used.
There is a lot more search etc. going on, which means that if Emacs
were to, for example, set inline code off using a fixed-width font
then we would need an easy way to search for such bits, search within
such bits, and search outside of such bits.  That's doable, but not
done so far.

Instead, we've got only curly quotation to set things off, and that
is a very poor substitute for `...' (for Emacs) or for a fixed-width
font (for other docs).

> > > It's the question of which version of Texinfo was used for
> > > producing the docs.  The defaults in Texinfo changed recently,
> > > independently of Emacs development.
> >
> > Defaults?  So Emacs has a choice?
> 
> _Texinfo_ defaults.  Not _Emacs_ defaults.

If they are Texinfo _defaults_ then doesn't that mean that Texinfo
also provides other choices?  If not then how are they just defaults?