Tim on curly quotes

I agree most strenuously with Tim Bray on the issue of curly quotes.

When you don’t use them, I think you’re an amateur. (I make an exception for email and chat, of course. And for Twitter, but only reluctantly.)

Where I differ is with the idea of remapping the keystrokes. While the standard keystrokes are slightly more painful, they’re surprisingly learnable and easy-to-use once learned. (I learned the keystrokes in 1989, back in my days laying out the college paper with QuarkXPress. City Collegian forever!)

And, once learned, you don’t have to worry about your next machine, the computer you’re borrowing, and so on. It’s not bad. The keystrokes even start to feel natural. (Well, after a few years, okay, yes.)