Re: [Emacs-diffs] master b533552 2/5: Documentation fixes re quotes

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 09/04/2015 12:50 AM, Paul Eggert wrote:

> > If the programmer types ‘foo‘, they can easily miss the non-matching
> > quotes
>
> First, the two scenarios are the same in the typical text-quoting-style
> case, because the output looks like ‘foo‘ either way,

Not if the translation logic checks for pairing. This is not true of the 
current code (IIUC), but it was true not too long ago, and that's what 
Stefan's asking for as well.

> and whatever
> method works for detecting input `foo` will work equally well for
> detecting input ‘foo‘.

What method are you thinking of? Lint-like highlighting in red is only 
feasible if the syntax is strict.

> Second and more important, it’s more efficient to detect and fix this
> issue immediately while typing, as the highlighting around the foo won’t
> be as expected and a programmer can see that easily right away and just
> backspace and fix the bad quote while it’s fresh.

Checking highlighting is good, but it only works when we're quoting 
simple symbols. Not Lisp expressions, key sequences or anything else 
like that.

Also, please recall that highlighting is performed in Lisp. Since you've 
opted to do translation in C, font-lock cannot accurately handle the 
quoting syntax, with escapes and etc.

> It’d be considerably
> more awkward and error-prone to detect the problem only when it’s
> rendered into a *Help* buffer.

Checking that the output looks right is a natural urge either way.

My main point is, in general, non-translating "markup" invites typos.

Emacs is powerful enough to paper over many problems, but maybe one 
should take a hint earlier and spend effort where it really matters.