Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: [HEY TOM!] unhelpful error for unreadable directories

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Suffield <address@hidden> writes:

    Andrew> ("backtick" and "grave accent" are more or less
    Andrew> synonymous; the latter is the name in formal typography, I
    Andrew> think, while the former is colloquial)

U+0060 is not a combining character (although it is a composite
character according to Unicode), while accents normally are.  Note
that usually "tick" in this sense is essentially equivalent to the
mathematical use of "prime" as a modifying character, and Unicode also
has several versions of primes, including reverse primes (ie,
backticks).  :-(

I don't think there's any way to make sense of the situation,[1]
especially given the very asymmetrical way acute accent (apostrophe)
is treated, except to say that with the usual fonts using backtick for
open single quote is committing the Capital Crime of Butt-Ugliness,
and those doing so should be enclosed in a Sisyphus Loop and summarily
executed (preferably slowly, on a '286 or older CPU).


Footnotes: 
[1]  I mean Unicode; for hackerlab, not only does Tom's suggestion for
the human-readable error messages neatly sidestep the religious
issues, it has minor but real advantages in actual use.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.