6 ms·

Copy pasting code shared on slack, why do the apostrophe characters get converted into a different character that looks like an apostrophe?

bombcar 4y ago
Often it’s smart quotes or similar being stupid.
- thangalin 4y ago
  Curling smart quotes correctly is a deceptively hard problem. I implemented a basic natural language parser that does a decent job. However, straight quotes are ambiguous. Compounding the problem is that curled apostrophes and right single quotes are indistinguishable, which is an oversight in Unicode, IMO, because they are semantically different. Here's my swat at the puzzle: https://whitemagicsoftware.com/keenquotes/ https://whitemagicsoftware.com/keenquotes/ When exporting Markdown documents to HTML or PDF, my text editor uses KeenQuotes to curl straight quotes to their most likely candidate: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#download https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#download
  - GolDDranks 4y ago
    Makes it even harder that some languages use straigth quotes as the gold standard – so whether to curve them or not is language dependent.
    - zokier 4y ago
      Which languages prefer straight quotes? Wikipedia doesn't mention any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
      - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
        Looks like hair splitting to me, they are all interchangeable. Apparently I used Dutch an Danish variants and nobody ever batted an eye. Cursive quotes look like just cursive version of straight quotes, you can't possibly differentiate them.
      - bloak 4y ago
        Quotation marks arguably depend on the country more than on the language, so Switzerland quotes like «this» in French, German and Italian, while the Germans, at least, don't quote like that. It seems that Sweden and Finland use the same character for opening and closing quotes, like ”this”, which is similar to using straight quotes.
      - GolDDranks 4y ago
        I was going to say "Finnish" (that's my native language), but to my surprise, after checking it, we use "”" after all. (We use that both as the opening and closing quotation mark.)
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    While I don't blame you or anything, this only works for English conventions. Dutch quotation marks are different, at least if you try to do smart quotes correctly. Expected output: „Goedemorgen,” zei hij. Returned output: “Goedemorgen,” zei hij. And that's just language to take care of! Smart quotes for computers are hell and there should be a library to do all this so everyone doesn't need to reinvent the wheel.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
This was going to be my point (roughly). It's like when you travel and you start to judge gas stations by their bathroom. Anyone who has traveled a lot knows exactly what I mean. copy/paste worked more reliably 20 years ago than it does today. So much so that I've started judging software based upon their ability to reliably copy/paste. Seems stupid, right? Just like judging gas stations by their bathroom seems stupid to people who rarely go into them because they don't travel. But it flat out amazes me how bad copy/paste is today. I once spent _hours_ trying to figure out why a PHP script was shitting all over itself. It turns out I copy/pasted the email text from Monday.com and it copied non-printing characters that caused PHP to fall over. Thing is, at that point, I was an old hand at that stupid crap, it didn't take me that long to find it. I learned years ago not to trust copy/paste.
- bentcorner 4y ago
  If you're on windows Ctrl+Shift+V is your friend.

bombcar 4y ago

Often it’s smart quotes or similar being stupid.

thangalin 4y ago
Curling smart quotes correctly is a deceptively hard problem. I implemented a basic natural language parser that does a decent job. However, straight quotes are ambiguous. Compounding the problem is that curled apostrophes and right single quotes are indistinguishable, which is an oversight in Unicode, IMO, because they are semantically different. Here's my swat at the puzzle: https://whitemagicsoftware.com/keenquotes/ https://whitemagicsoftware.com/keenquotes/ When exporting Markdown documents to HTML or PDF, my text editor uses KeenQuotes to curl straight quotes to their most likely candidate: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#download https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite#download
- GolDDranks 4y ago
  Makes it even harder that some languages use straigth quotes as the gold standard – so whether to curve them or not is language dependent.
  - zokier 4y ago
    Which languages prefer straight quotes? Wikipedia doesn't mention any: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_mark
    - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
      Looks like hair splitting to me, they are all interchangeable. Apparently I used Dutch an Danish variants and nobody ever batted an eye. Cursive quotes look like just cursive version of straight quotes, you can't possibly differentiate them.
    - bloak 4y ago
      Quotation marks arguably depend on the country more than on the language, so Switzerland quotes like «this» in French, German and Italian, while the Germans, at least, don't quote like that. It seems that Sweden and Finland use the same character for opening and closing quotes, like ”this”, which is similar to using straight quotes.
    - GolDDranks 4y ago
      I was going to say "Finnish" (that's my native language), but to my surprise, after checking it, we use "”" after all. (We use that both as the opening and closing quotation mark.)
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  While I don't blame you or anything, this only works for English conventions. Dutch quotation marks are different, at least if you try to do smart quotes correctly. Expected output: „Goedemorgen,” zei hij. Returned output: “Goedemorgen,” zei hij. And that's just language to take care of! Smart quotes for computers are hell and there should be a library to do all this so everyone doesn't need to reinvent the wheel.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

This was going to be my point (roughly). It's like when you travel and you start to judge gas stations by their bathroom. Anyone who has traveled a lot knows exactly what I mean. copy/paste worked more reliably 20 years ago than it does today. So much so that I've started judging software based upon their ability to reliably copy/paste. Seems stupid, right? Just like judging gas stations by their bathroom seems stupid to people who rarely go into them because they don't travel. But it flat out amazes me how bad copy/paste is today. I once spent _hours_ trying to figure out why a PHP script was shitting all over itself. It turns out I copy/pasted the email text from Monday.com and it copied non-printing characters that caused PHP to fall over. Thing is, at that point, I was an old hand at that stupid crap, it didn't take me that long to find it. I learned years ago not to trust copy/paste.

bentcorner 4y ago
If you're on windows Ctrl+Shift+V is your friend.