Re: [Emacs-diffs] master c4151eb: Improve the optional translation of quotes

[Paul Eggert]

Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> We need some output-independent markup that will eventually translate into
> whatever presentation we choose.

Yes, and we have that now.  The simplest way to use it is to use the same curved 
quotes in input as in output, but we can add more complex ways as needed.

> Please recall the suggestion to do everything via font-lock. It would also allow
> us to use some different quoting mechanism other than \\=, which Stefan
> complained about.

Of course.  Font-lock is pretty much independent of the quoting mechanism that 
docstrings use.  For example, if we decide to support only backslash escapes to 
quote in docstrings (yuck!), we could get that to work with font-lock; or if we 
decide to support only curved quotes to quote in docstrings (too aggressive, if 
you ask me), we could get that to work with font-lock too.

When I tried font-lock mode in this area I came away baffled (see Bug#20385 
Message#289, and Bug#20613), so I don't know how well it'd really work in 
practice for this problem.  It is a poorly documented area, unfortunately.