Re: master ff4de1b: Fix quoting style in Lisp comments

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> If this discussion indicates something it's that "plain text" is open
> to interpretation, so if we will have a mandatory convention, we'd
> need to come up with an explicit list.  E.g., NEWS and PROBLEMS are by
> default in Outline mode, not in Text mode, so someone could claim they
> aren't "plain text".

I guess somebody could -- we'll have to wait and see whether anybody
does make that argument.

>> (And when it comes to commit messages, I don't think we should have a
>> convention -- it just doesn't matter, and people should use whatever
>> they want to.)
>
> We produce ChangeLog files from that.
>
> And if we allow people to do what they want, then we have that
> already, so I see no reason to argue about conventions no one will
> follow.

You were the one that brought up commit messages, and I just re-stated
my position that we don't need to have a convention there (and you seem
to be agreeing here).

That doesn't mean that I don't think we should have a convention
elsewhere, and I think it should be, basically, what we have today:

NEWS, CONTRIBUTE and other files of a similar ilk should use '...'.
.el/.c files should use `...' (when talking about Lisp symbols).

> Btw, `...' in *.c files is not highlighted.

I'd forgotten -- it'd be nice to have that fixed.

>> and if we decide to move to '...', we
>> should do so everywhere in those files: Both doc strings and comments.
>
> That is impossible, because doc strings must still use `...'.

We'd have to change the machinery to do the same thing with '...' as we
today do with `...', of course.  (But note that I'm not advocating for
this.)

> And I don't see why comments and doc strings should use the same
> convention, they are used differently.

We often move text between comments and doc strings (mostly by making
comments into doc strings), and it seems pretty awkward to insist on
using different conventions in the two different parts of the same
source file.

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