Why smart quotes by default ?

Wes Hurd <[email protected]> Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:09:16 -0500

Newsgroups	gmane.text.docutils.user
Message-ID	<CAOAGZwEM2B+asvGt2vqXzRKApd-F-zmyCyX82Usw+68XnkuEvg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Just out of curiosity, why does docutils use smart quotes by default ?
Any programmer should know code and smart quotes don't mix (when they
experience it), and documentation cannot be expected to put all code
snippets in code blocks.

Why create potential usability issues with smart quotes ?
e.g. https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org/issues/6459

IMO, the sane default would be to *not* use smart quotes.

Cheers,