Re: [PATCH] Unicode Lisp reader escapes

[Oliver Scholz <alkibiades@gmx.de>]

Aidan Kehoe <kehoea@parhasard.net> writes:

[...]
> It seems to me that the only objections there are Richard’s, on the grounds
> of ugliness, and Oliver’s, on the unexplained grounds of what I imagine is
> his individual philosophy.

Though unexplained, not based on individual philosophy but based on
principles which I assume to be shared by most readers here (and which
therefore don't need explanation unless somebody explicitely asks for
one). The principle is that the Lisp API should be as consistent and
regular as possible in order to minimise possible sources of surprise
for the user. \x and \u are so similar in what they do, that there
should be very strong reasons for a difference in their syntax.

As for \u and \U with fixed numbers of digits: it might be standard in
other languages, but for Lisp it is entirely alien.

My comment was not an objection. On the contrary I am a believer here.
I think having a syntax for UCS characters in the next release would
be a very important addition. (That's why I raised my voice in the
first place.) You mentioned the reasons already so there's no need to
repeat them here.

The way *I* understand the discussion, the only real objection still
standing in the room is Richard's concern that \u would become
obsolete as soon as Emacs switches to an internal UCS encoding. I
still disagree, but I see his point. The question is whether the
portability provided by \u is considered to be more important than the
(conceived) redundance in the future.

As for implementing decode-char in C: that should be really trivial.


    Oliver
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