Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs.

[Wolfgang Jenkner]

On Tue, Jun 23 2015, Paul Eggert wrote:

> Richard Stallman wrote:
>> The full conventions for doc strings are definitely not
>> part of the rudiments.
>
> True, but quoting is pretty elementary.  Most doc strings use it,
> I daresay. For example, the doc strings for ‘car’, ‘cdr’, and ‘length’
> all use quoting. These are the sorts of doc strings that new users are
> likely to see.
>
> I agree with you, by the way, that the improvement due to using curved
> quotes is not a large one.  Emacs's use of an obsolescent quoting
> style is merely a constant minor annoyance, and it's obviously
> something that we can work around when we teach Emacs to students --
> we can even give them a little history lesson as we go.

You could equally well choose to present doc strings in emacs as an
example of how to decouple mark-up from presentation instead, though.

I mean, those quotes (any kind of quotes) in *Help* or *info* are a bit
odd anyway given that documentation presented in web browsers usually
manages to do fine without them.

How do you explain to your students why they are needed (the quotes, not
the students)?