From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs. Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:54:59 -0400 Message-ID: References: <20150615142237.GA3517@acm.fritz.box> <87y4jkhqh5.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <557F3C22.4060909@cs.ucla.edu> <5580D356.4050708@cs.ucla.edu> <87si9qonxb.fsf@gnu.org> <5581C29E.1030101@yandex.ru> <558D6A3D.1070706@yandex.ru> <558DD6EA.4090306@yandex.ru> <558F497A.8050304@yandex.ru> <55926A9E.40901@yandex.ru> <5592A3D7.9060608@yandex.ru> <5592BBA3.9080701@cs.ucla.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1435686918 26602 80.91.229.3 (30 Jun 2015 17:55:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2015 17:55:18 +0000 (UTC) Cc: acm@muc.de, stephen@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, rms@gnu.org, Dmitry Gutov To: Paul Eggert Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jun 30 19:55:09 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Z9zkS-0007Oh-83 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 19:55:08 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:48092 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z9zkR-0002nk-Nz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:55:07 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38722) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z9zkO-0002mP-JK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:55:05 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z9zkK-00069G-FU for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:55:04 -0400 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.181]:50459) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Z9zkK-000694-AR; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:55:00 -0400 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: A0CVDQA731xV/2cGNJ1cDoMChALBFYdLBAICgTw6EwEBAQEBAQGBCkEFg10BAQMBViMFCws0EhQYDSSINwjPIwEBAQcCAR+LOoUFB4QtBZ8XhmmPBCOCChyBFFoigngBAQE X-IPAS-Result: A0CVDQA731xV/2cGNJ1cDoMChALBFYdLBAICgTw6EwEBAQEBAQGBCkEFg10BAQMBViMFCws0EhQYDSSINwjPIwEBAQcCAR+LOoUFB4QtBZ8XhmmPBCOCChyBFFoigngBAQE X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="5.13,465,1427774400"; d="scan'208";a="128883772" Original-Received: from 157-52-6-103.cpe.teksavvy.com (HELO pastel.home) ([157.52.6.103]) by ironport2-out.teksavvy.com with ESMTP; 30 Jun 2015 13:55:00 -0400 Original-Received: by pastel.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 4B0685FE1B; Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:54:59 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <5592BBA3.9080701@cs.ucla.edu> (Paul Eggert's message of "Tue, 30 Jun 2015 08:54:11 -0700") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 206.248.154.181 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:187690 Archived-At: > That being said, Stefan is right that \\` and \\' are shorter than \\=` and > \\=' and in that sense are nicer. Shorter is good, but to me the main problem is that I can never remember this \= escaping (tho maybe after this longish discussion, I'll finally remember it). So if even I can't remember it, I can't expect other people to remember it and even less to use it. \ escaping OTOH is the standard escaping method. > First, \` and \' already have a special meaning in docstring sources > (unrelated to this issue) I don't know which meaning you're referring to. > and it will be confusing for people to read > docstring source code like this: > > "LISTIFIED is a list representing each topic header and body: > > \`(depth prefix text)' > > or \`(depth prefix text bullet-plus)'" You lost me here. Why would someone write the above docstring? What's the intended meaning? > Second and more important, here's an example of a docstring that would need > to be changed: > "Face for characters displayed as sequences using `^' or `\\'." > Presumably this would be changed to: > "Face for characters displayed as sequences using `^' or `\\\\'." > But this would mean that we need to change the meaning of \\\\ in docstring > sources too, and that's a bigger deal and would affect more than 20 or so > docstrings. For example, we'd need to change this docstring source: Right, so the issue here is that we need to be able to escape the escape char, and if we use \\ for that (which is the only choice if we want to follow the standard escaping mechanism), then we have many places where we'll have to double the backslashes (and those have already been doubled for other layers of escaping). Stefan