Re: Emacs 26.1 release branch created

[Paul Eggert]

Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> I have redefined
> the value of nil in text-quoting-style to mean "no translation of
> quotes" and introduced t to mean "prefer curved quotes", the meaning nil
> previously had.

Let's not change the semantics of text-quoting-style's values. Such a change is 
not worth the compatibility hassle to users. John asked you to propose a patch 
to make text-quoting-style customizable, not to change its semantics. Whether 
text-quoting-style is customizable is orthogonal to what its values mean, and we 
shouldn't conflate the two issues.

>  quotes.  In contrast, a call using a format like @t{"Missing '%s'"}
>  with only apostrophes typically generates a message like @t{"Missing
>  ’foo’"} with only closing curved quotes, an unusual style in English.
> +One way around this problem is to bind @code{text-quoting-style} to
> address@hidden around the call to @code{error}; this causes the
> address@hidden quote characters to be output unchanged.

This doc patch, which occurs in multiple places, heads in the wrong direction. 
"Missing `%s'" is the typical way to quote in Emacs source code. The current 
documentation gently warns the programmer to avoid "Missing '%s'" as this is not 
the usual Emacs style and typically won't look good anyway. If the warning is 
not clear enough we should clarify it, not encourage proliferation of atypical 
formats.

> +** The variable `text-quoting-style' is now a customizable option.  It

This (and other changes to NEWS) should use straight quotes, as that's the style 
used in NEWS now.