GNU bug report logs - #20385
Support curved quotes in doc strings

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Message #265 received at 20385 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov <at> yandex.ru>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>, 20385 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#20385: [PATCH] Support curved quotes in doc strings
Date: Sat, 16 May 2015 03:08:25 +0300

On 05/16/2015 02:52 AM, Paul Eggert wrote:

> Yes it will.  It'll work fine.  If a documentation string is in (say)
> Hungarian, a user will be able to paste quoted Hungarian text into it,
> and the text will carry its Hungarian quotation marks along.  It'll be
> just like documentation in English and with English quotes.

I see. But will elisp-completion-at-point detect that point is inside 
the Hungarian quotes now? Will we have to enumerate every possible kind 
of quote in its implementation?

> The point is that it's simpler and nicer if cutting and pasting Just Works.

Ok, we can say it's the main benefit. I think it's not of the utmost 
importance, though.

> No, there's normally no need to localize those curved quotes, not if the
> text is English and uses English quoting.  The only time one would need
> to localize is for obsolete displays lacking curved quotes, which casual
> contributors are unlikely to be using nowadays anyway.

And that localization code will have to deal with every kind of quote, then?

> Texinfo does.  Unicode curved quotes are part of the markup.  They
> affect spacing among other things.

Okay, that's... weird. Any other examples, such as ones that newcomers 
to Emacs might be familiar with?

>> I don't see it as clunky
>
> That's the main point of disagreement here.  Although Emacs old-timers
> are used to quoting `like this', to newbies it's a weird and offputting
> relic from ancient history.

That's neither here nor there. Like you said, they'd still be typing ` 
and ', but in your case those will be converted into actual quote 
characters on the fly, and in mine, only rendered as such.

The end result, visually, would be the same.

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