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Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if

Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if I want "dumb" quotes, I have to tap and hold the key to get the popup. Simply tapping the quote key is less effort. [a]: On my computers, I’ll use "dumb" quotes. Easy way to see where I typed a comment from, I guess.

wahnfrieden 4y ago
it’s an old gatekeeping / geek dick measuring thing, don’t worry about it
- Manu40 4y ago
  I'm upvoting you, because calling it disturbing really doesn't make sense unless egotism is involved. IMHO. If someone can explain why it's not just egotism, please go right ahead. Otherwise, it really does seem like it. To me at least. Other comments try to sort of deal with this problem in their explanations about soft and hard quotes, but they don't really deal with the part about it being disturbing. What's so disturbing about using a feature available on your device? Especially when it does nothing harmful to the user, or recipients of that users communications?
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    It is egotism
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    A good-faith interpretation would be that "disturbing" is meant more lightly than that. It's more like saying use of tabs (or spaces) is "disturbing". It is a cultural disagreement on surface level, but not _really_ a disagreement if you were to probe further (I doubt the author thinks people are literally disturbed if they use soft quotes). Further, if you check my sibling comment you'll see that it is a common mistake for beginner/intermediate coders to paste these quotes into code. This is the source of the "cultural debate" in this instance. They are making a judgement about how this common copy/paste problem shows up in practice. Not a judgement about "proper usage". It's honestly a little surprising that you took this so personally. It reads rather playfully in my opinion.
JadeNB 4y ago
> Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if I want "dumb" quotes, I have to tap and hold the key to get the popup. Simply tapping the quote key is less effort. I never knew you could do that! I've got very frustrated sometimes typing on an iPad when I really want a dumb quote, and, unlike on macOS where the dumb quote is the default and there's the convenient if baffling OPT-[ shortcut to get “ and OPT-SHIFT-[ for ”, I couldn't figure out what to do to my default smart quote to get a dumb quote. Thanks!
ShamelessC 4y ago
It is simply because they present a commonly encountered scenario where you mistakenly paste them into your code. Not something I encounter much lately but definitely tripped me up in my early years.
OJFord 4y ago
You can also just turn them off completely. IIRC Android also does it by default. It's one of the first things I look for on a new device, along with disabling haptic feedback and stupid sound effects.

wahnfrieden 4y ago

it’s an old gatekeeping / geek dick measuring thing, don’t worry about it

Manu40 4y ago
I'm upvoting you, because calling it disturbing really doesn't make sense unless egotism is involved. IMHO. If someone can explain why it's not just egotism, please go right ahead. Otherwise, it really does seem like it. To me at least. Other comments try to sort of deal with this problem in their explanations about soft and hard quotes, but they don't really deal with the part about it being disturbing. What's so disturbing about using a feature available on your device? Especially when it does nothing harmful to the user, or recipients of that users communications?
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  It is egotism
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  A good-faith interpretation would be that "disturbing" is meant more lightly than that. It's more like saying use of tabs (or spaces) is "disturbing". It is a cultural disagreement on surface level, but not _really_ a disagreement if you were to probe further (I doubt the author thinks people are literally disturbed if they use soft quotes). Further, if you check my sibling comment you'll see that it is a common mistake for beginner/intermediate coders to paste these quotes into code. This is the source of the "cultural debate" in this instance. They are making a judgement about how this common copy/paste problem shows up in practice. Not a judgement about "proper usage". It's honestly a little surprising that you took this so personally. It reads rather playfully in my opinion.

JadeNB 4y ago

> Why is OP describing that as “disturbing” (I type with “smart” quotes)? It’s not intentional; it’s just because I’m on an iPhone.[a] On the default keyboard, if I want "dumb" quotes, I have to tap and hold the key to get the popup. Simply tapping the quote key is less effort. I never knew you could do that! I've got very frustrated sometimes typing on an iPad when I really want a dumb quote, and, unlike on macOS where the dumb quote is the default and there's the convenient if baffling OPT-[ shortcut to get “ and OPT-SHIFT-[ for ”, I couldn't figure out what to do to my default smart quote to get a dumb quote. Thanks!

ShamelessC 4y ago

It is simply because they present a commonly encountered scenario where you mistakenly paste them into your code. Not something I encounter much lately but definitely tripped me up in my early years.

OJFord 4y ago

You can also just turn them off completely. IIRC Android also does it by default. It's one of the first things I look for on a new device, along with disabling haptic feedback and stupid sound effects.