Re: please use ?\u2014 instead of the unicode character in buff-menu.el

[Stefan Monnier]

> How many people use a proportional font to view Emacs-Lisp code? With a
> fixed font, the code is _less_ legible using the em-dash character than the
> escape sequence. Why? Because the difference between a normal hyphen
> character and an em-dash character in most fixed-width fonts is
> imperceptible.

> IOW, when the code is not broken because of Web access or browser problems,
> it looks pretty much like this:

>  (let ((underline (if (char-displayable-p ?-) ?- ?-))) ...

> So much for legibility of the code, bis. Hence the big honkin comment:

>  ;; Use U+2014 (EM DASH) to underline if possible, else U+002D
> (HYPHEN-MINUS)

> So much for avoiding the nastiness of ?\u2014.  U+2014 is much better...

Hmm... I skipped straight to the general argument, with which I eindeed
strongly disagree, but in the specific case of buff-menu.el, I believe
you're right: the \u escape would be better.


        Stefan