bug#20707: [PROPOSED PATCH] Use curved quoting in C-generated errors

[Paul Eggert]

On 06/10/2015 10:39 AM, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> One doesn't usually see WYSIWYG in program source files. 

I suppose it depends on what one means by "WYSIWYG"; I was referring to 
a primary use of character string literals, which is that they're parts 
of programs that look like what will be displayed.  That is, in 
principle one could write sequences of character codes instead, but this:

   printf ((char const []) { 0x48, 0x65, 0x6c, 0x6c, 0x6f, 0 });

is much simpler when written as this:

  printf ("Hello");

> I think it's okay (more or less) if you want to type a curly quote in 
> a docstring if it has no secondary meaning. Less so if you want to use 
> it to delineate Lisp symbols or code. 

I don't see where that "less so" is coming from.  In doc strings it's 
clearer to use curved quotes to delimit English from Lisp, and to use 
grave accent for its ordinary use in Lisp.  This helps the reader 
distinguish English text that talks about Lisp code from the Lisp code 
itself.  For example, this:

``VAL' matches if the object is `equal' to VAL

is confusing compared to this:

‘`VAL’ matches if the object is ‘equal’ to VAL