Subject: Re: bug#24902: 25.1; C-x = for Unicode

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 18:39:41 +0100

Mattias Engdegård <[email-masked]> writes:

> 1. It doesn't fit the problem very well: neither the traditional nor
> the new format are easily expressed with format-spec since they are
> conditional in several ways (fields or strings that appear depending
> on the circumstances). In contrast, conditions are easily expressible
> in Lisp.

The format we're settling on doesn't have to be identical to the one we
have today.  Defaulting to, say, the

Char: e (101, #o145, #x65) point=818 of 2005 (41%) column=60

might be OK.

> 2. Even if we went through the contortions to make formats expressible
> in format-spec, it still wouldn't be very easy to do so, especially
> compared to choosing a ready-made format. For more advanced
> customisation, Lisp is probably preferable.

Writing code is always better for programmers, but non-programmers can
put together format-spec things easier.

> 3. As any designer knows, customisability is a cop-out: it's an
> abdication of responsibility. The user can now conveniently be blamed
> for any perceived shortcoming. Conversely, being forced to think and
> make hard choices is much of what design is about, and users like when
> it's done for them in a competent way.

I know what you mean, but of course I want to have a good default.  I
just doubt that there's any point in adding more than one "standard
format" -- people that want to tweak stuff like this really wants to
tweak stuff like this.  Trying to figure out all formats a user might
want is futile (and ultimately user-hostile).

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no