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RE: Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27?


From: Drew Adams
Subject: RE: Change of Lisp syntax for "fancy" quotes in Emacs 27?
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2018 15:43:21 +0000 (UTC)

It sounds like the contexts where a char might be confused
with another are varied and depend on things that can even
include user attention and intention.

If we want to help users be aware of character-confusion
possibilities then I think whatever we offer them in this
regard needs to be (1) optional and (2) configurable
(granularity, specifying contexts/uses/conditions, etc.).

I think we can offer to help by highlighting characters (or
their surrounding contexts, e.g., when a char is tiny or
otherwise unobtrusive or invisible).

I think we should avoid raising errors, but that could be
an option that some users might want to choose in some
contexts. We could perhaps offer a range of help
responses, from a range of highlighting possibilities to
outright error-raising.

We can have code that tries to be clever, but that should
only be used if asked for by a user. We should not try to
second-guess text or users by default.

The last thing we should want is to bother users by
default, or systematically, warning them left and right
about possibilities of confusion. Such warnings or
notifications or highlights need to be opt-in, IMHO.

Above all, Emacs, and especially Emacs Lisp, should
continue to be an environment where you can do what
you want without obstruction or unnecessary
hand-holding or helicopter-parenting.

(Note that I qualified that with "unnecessary". If there
is some real, strong, unambiguous danger that we can
identify then of course we need to offer protection up
front. That help would not be "unnecessary".)



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