bug#55645: src/print.c; print_object changes make it impossible to compare elisp code across versions

[Po Lu]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I've certainly been puzzled over the printed representation of these
> symbols, and I've wondered whether I should use a transliteration scheme
> (which isn't necessary), so I think it's likely that others have been,
> too.

Fulfilling a niche is not really a good enough reason to make such a
change, especially once it causes actual problems for someone.

Most programmers will not see a symbol with a dot inside every day, or
even every month (the ones you sent are the first ones I've seen this
year.)  Programmers probably come across reasons to use them even less,
and the amount of those reasons is reduced even further if you rule out
unambiguous interfaces such as `intern'.

> Users will inevitably see symbols like this at some point or another.

Chances are (if it actually happens) those symbols will not be printed,
but displayed to the user as the product of something similar to:

  (message "%s" 'symbol.here)

Which does not escape the dot.

That aside, why is it escaping a rarely encountered character inside a
symbol a "problem" important enough to fix, especially when the fix
breaks someone's code badly enough for him to complain about it?