Re: Upcoming loss of usability of Emacs source files and Emacs.

[Tassilo Horn]

Dmitry Gutov <address@hidden> writes:

> On 06/28/2015 08:52 PM, Tassilo Horn wrote:
>
>> For example, I've seen uses of ⸢foo⸥ for marking up source code
>> snippets.  That seems pretty unambiguous (although you can never be
>> sure), and as long you can type it easily and display it however
>> suits you best, it's as good as anything else.
>
> If we're prepared to change the markup radically, it would be better
> to use something like a tilde character, which is both ASCII and very
> rare in our docstrings.

That wasn't really meant as a suggestion.  I just wanted to ask why not
use some extremely rare paired characters if unambiguity is the main
point and we have some convenient input method anyhow.  That simply
typing a key which has the exact letter on it is even better is obvious.

>> BTW: On a related note: I don't get why *Help* buffers display quotes
>> at all when they are already displayed with a face that makes them
>> distinguishable from "normal" text and are clickable.
>
> Not the same thing.  We only linkify the names of already-loaded (or
> autoloaded) functions and variables.
>
> Whereas we also use the quotes for other cases, like key sequences
> (`C-h k') and arbitrary `symbols' (for example when describing
> possible values of a variable or a function argument).

Ok, right.  Basically, what I meant to say is that @kbd{} in texinfo and
`...' in elisp docstrings is markup which says that's a
keybinding/symbol/code snippet.  I don't see why this would imply that
it needs to be displayed with quote characters, it just needs to be
displayed as something "non-prose-y."

Bye,
Tassilo