Re: Rendering the em dash on the terminal

[Tadziu Hoffmann]

I suspect conventions might be strongly regionally
dependent.

> - Em-dashes are represented by two hyphens with no space
>   either side--visually easy to understand.
>
> - En-dashes are represented by a single hyphen
>   surrounded by spaces (e.g. 2 - 3 minutes).

I believe this should be reversed -- 2 hyphens with spaces
for an em-dash, and 2 hyphens without spaces for an en-dash
(e.g., 2--3 minutes).  This not only follows typeset conventions
more closely, but it also indicates the intent to the typesetter
much better.  In addition, it corresponds to European practice,
where it is customary to use an en-dash surrounded by spaces
instead of the em-dash without spaces used in the US.

TeX's convention is also good and unambiguous, and I've
seen that being used in documentation as well:
  * one hyphen for hyphen or minus (depending on context)
  * two hyphens for an en-dash
  * three hyphens for an em-dash

> - All enumerators for lists (other than letters or digits) are
>   represented by a single hyphen followed by a space

Anything nicely symmetric works well, and allows visually
distinguishing between different list levels in addition
to list indentation.  (In earlier times when documents
such as manual pages were often printed on lineprinters
capable of overstriking, I've seen o-plus used.)