Subject: Re: bug#20385: [PROPOSED PATCH] Support quoting 'like this' in doc strings

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2015 09:30:10 +0300

> Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:37:14 -0700
> From: Paul Eggert <[email-masked]>
> CC: [email-masked]
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > So if we want this to become our default, we need changes in
> > ispell.el, to replace ’ with ' before we sent it to the speller.
> 
> Although a change like that might make sense, it appears to go beyond what's 
> needed for doc strings.

The suggestion to which I responded was to use
https://github.com/gareth-rees/smart-quotes, which is a minor mode
that is not limited to doc strings.  Moreover, it is not limited to
quoting, AFAIU, it will also replace lone apostrophes with ’.

> I was thinking of something more modest: change Emacs 
> so that if you're editing an Elisp or C string, then when you type `like-this' 
> it's by default changed to ‘like-this’.

I don't think you describe smart-quotes, you describe some other
similar feature.  I was talking about smart-quotes, and especially
about making it default in text modes.

> Or were you thinking about spell-checking doc strings?

If you are considering a feature similar to smart-quotes, especially
if it's not limited to quoting, then yes, spell-checking doc strings
will hit the same problem.

> If so, I don't see how changing the quoting style affects how the
> spell-checker works.  It wouldn't affect the way I spell-check code,
> anyway.  Could you give an example?

If this is limited to quoting, I don't think it will affect
spell-checking.  But that's not what I was talking about.