Subject: bug#16292: 24.3.50; info docs now contain single straight quotes instead of `'

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2014 13:07:15 -0800 (PST)

> > > > Better would be to leave the files alone, and build the next
> > > > Emacs tarball with Texinfo 4.
> > >
> > > I don't mind to use Texinfo 4, if there are no objections.  It
> > > would solve the problem that matters to me.
> >
> > But not the problem that matters to the OP and other users in a
> > similar situation.
> 
> Yes, that too: Texinfo 4 still uses `..' for quoting.

No.  The OP's problem came from an Emacs that was built otherwise.
That's the point.  He was aware of that being the cause; it is
exactly that problem that he reported (to me).

Yes, Texinfo and makeinfo are not Emacs.  That's your point.  But
that does not solve the OP's problem.  That's the point.

> > The OP uses Debian and emacs-snapshot.
> 
> Again, this isn't an Emacs problem.  It is wrong to expect Emacs
> to fix problems caused by decisions of other packages.

I can sympathize with that, and I agree with it generally.  Still,
it seems that in this case it means that more and more Emacs users
will get worse Info behavior in Emacs, as more and more builders
move to a more recent Texinfo/makeinfo.  Can we only tell users
that this is not an Emacs problem?  That's the answer?

Perhaps there comes a point when it might make sense to work
around some problems that are strictly speaking "not an Emacs
problem".  They can end up becoming a problem for Emacs (Emacs
users), whether or not Emacs is the source of the problem.

Of course, whether to try to work around such a problem probably
also depends on the difficulty of implementing (and maintaining)
the workaround.  I cannot speak to that.

I will only say that it's too bad if Emacs users lose reasonable
Info behavior that they have enjoyed since the beginning.