Re: Patch: Syntax and Hard Newlines

[Richard Stallman]

    It's not clear at all that it's a bug rather than a feature.
    I think if it's a bug, the bug is in longlines.el since it is longlines
    which decides that soft-newlines are basically "display only artifacts".

    In most other contexts, soft newlines are much more real (they're soft, but
    they're newlines nevertheless).

In which contexts is it undesirable for soft newlines to be treated
syntactically as spaces?  The idea of soft newlines is that they and
spaces are sort of interchangeable.

Soft newlines are only used in longlines mode and in enriched mode,
and enriched mode won't be used for programs very much.