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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable direc
From: |
Andrew Suffield |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories |
Date: |
Tue, 27 Apr 2004 18:33:10 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.5.1+cvs20040105i |
On Mon, Apr 26, 2004 at 08:54:43PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> Matthieu Moy writes:
>
> > Andrew Suffield <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> >> ` is a backtick, not a quote. Stop abusing it as a quote. That only
> >> works in tex, not C.
> >
> > We're talking about user error messages. The language doesn't matter
> > for that. Language is something internal to your tool that shouldn't
> > be shown to the user.
> >
> > Wether you write your software in TeX[1], C, or lisp mustn't change
> > the interface of your software.
>
> Indeed. By similar logic, user error messages should not pointlessly
> conform to the standards of a language such as TeX when the user's
> language has a preferred quoting style (be it English, French or some
> other set).
It's not even that. In TeX, ` generates a real left quote in the
output, rather than a backtick (since left quotes are generally useful
in typography, and backticks are generally not). In everything else,
it's just a backtick. Frequent TeX users often have a bad habit of
abusing ` as a left quote everywhere else, presumably because they're
used to seeing it while editing TeX code.
> If you wish for a separate reference, the Unicode standard says that '
> is APOSTROPHE (but with U+2018 preferred for open quotation mark and
> U+2019 preferred as an apostrophe or closing quotation mark) and ` is
> GRAVE ACCENT (and not even the "similar characters" list mentions
> quoting characters).
("backtick" and "grave accent" are more or less synonymous; the latter
is the name in formal typography, I think, while the former is colloquial)
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
: :' : http://www.debian.org/ |
`. `' |
`- -><- |
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- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, (continued)
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Tom Lord, 2004/04/26
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Nikolai Weibull, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Andrew Suffield, 2004/04/26
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Nikolai Weibull, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Andrew Suffield, 2004/04/26
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Nikolai Weibull, 2004/04/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Andrew Suffield, 2004/04/27
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Nikolai Weibull, 2004/04/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Matthieu Moy, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Michael Poole, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories,
Andrew Suffield <=
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Stephen J. Turnbull, 2004/04/28
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, tomas, 2004/04/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Tom Lord, 2004/04/27
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Nikolai Weibull, 2004/04/27
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, tomas, 2004/04/28
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Andre Majorel, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Michael Poole, 2004/04/26
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Matthieu Moy, 2004/04/25
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories, Aaron Bentley, 2004/04/25