5 ms·

How do you handle non-paired ones then?

maleldil 3y ago
Render them as standard double quotes? The same way Markdown renders a single backtick as just a backtick, but text surrounded by backticks becomes code.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  Nice try, but the problem with this is that typography is _really_ complex. For example, there is a rule in English typography (I'm not sure if it's often used today though) that when you have a quotation spanning several paragraphs, you should put an _opening_ quote at the beginning of each paragraph – but only one _closing_ one at the end of the quote.
  - yencabulator 3y ago
    We've let go of other historical typographic and spelling conventions, it's time to let go of that one too.
    - kristjansson 3y ago
      Computers exist to represent, transmit, and display _human_ communications. If a computer system cannot represent a human utterance we should extend the representational capacity of the computer system, not force the human to conform to the limitations of the technology.
      - yencabulator 3y ago
        I'm also all for eliminating overly complicated typographical conventions from places where they are technologically possible.
      - account42 3y ago
        Computers also generally don't support scribbles in the margins of your document. Or stylized glyph variants except a few that have been grandfathered in, e.g. ꙮ. Neither does the computer support whatever ligatures you might make up on the spot. One thing that makes computers more powerful than analog tools is that they are much much much more structured. So while we should not take computer limits for granted I think that the opposite extreme is just as if not even more absurd.
    - mbork_pl 3y ago
      It would be quite sad. Besides, it is not an arbitrary convention, it serves a purpose.
      - account42 3y ago
        No it doesn't. Unbalanced quotation marks are a crime against humanity.
Izkata 3y ago
I would base direction on adjacent whitespace/punctuation instead of trying to do pairing.
- mbork_pl 3y ago
  Nice try, too. How would you handle Spanish quotation marks at the beginning of the sentence, then? And what about French quotes which are separated from their contents by a thin space? All of that is possible, of course, with large tables of special cases. Or, you know, you could just have separate characters for opening/closing quotation marks. ;-)
  - Izkata 3y ago
    > All of that is possible, of course, with large tables of special cases. Yes, that's how ligatures work. Pairing across characters is the one I'm not sure I've heard of before in fonts. Edit: Besides, how do you think these are typed on keyboards without separate keys? The software already detects and replaces them based on context.

Render them as standard double quotes? The same way Markdown renders a single backtick as just a backtick, but text surrounded by backticks becomes code.

mbork_pl 3y ago
Nice try, but the problem with this is that typography is _really_ complex. For example, there is a rule in English typography (I'm not sure if it's often used today though) that when you have a quotation spanning several paragraphs, you should put an _opening_ quote at the beginning of each paragraph – but only one _closing_ one at the end of the quote.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  We've let go of other historical typographic and spelling conventions, it's time to let go of that one too.
  - kristjansson 3y ago
    Computers exist to represent, transmit, and display _human_ communications. If a computer system cannot represent a human utterance we should extend the representational capacity of the computer system, not force the human to conform to the limitations of the technology.
    - yencabulator 3y ago
      I'm also all for eliminating overly complicated typographical conventions from places where they are technologically possible.
    - account42 3y ago
      Computers also generally don't support scribbles in the margins of your document. Or stylized glyph variants except a few that have been grandfathered in, e.g. ꙮ. Neither does the computer support whatever ligatures you might make up on the spot. One thing that makes computers more powerful than analog tools is that they are much much much more structured. So while we should not take computer limits for granted I think that the opposite extreme is just as if not even more absurd.
  - mbork_pl 3y ago
    It would be quite sad. Besides, it is not an arbitrary convention, it serves a purpose.
    - account42 3y ago
      No it doesn't. Unbalanced quotation marks are a crime against humanity.

Izkata 3y ago

I would base direction on adjacent whitespace/punctuation instead of trying to do pairing.

mbork_pl 3y ago
Nice try, too. How would you handle Spanish quotation marks at the beginning of the sentence, then? And what about French quotes which are separated from their contents by a thin space? All of that is possible, of course, with large tables of special cases. Or, you know, you could just have separate characters for opening/closing quotation marks. ;-)
- Izkata 3y ago
  > All of that is possible, of course, with large tables of special cases. Yes, that's how ligatures work. Pairing across characters is the one I'm not sure I've heard of before in fonts. Edit: Besides, how do you think these are typed on keyboards without separate keys? The software already detects and replaces them based on context.