On 2013–07–27 john Culleton wrote:

> I think I will encapsulate the "\quotation" method in a macro like
> \def\qq{\\quotation\{}
> or similar. Two keystrokes are better than  nine.

I'd suggest to use the auto complete feature of your editor. When
reading the source after six months “\qq” makes you wonder what it
does, if you use “\quotation” is obvious.

> I note that the plain TeX version of closing quotes, '' still works.
> Would it be that hard to make the opening quotes of `` still work? 
> 
> Not every change is an improvement, IMO.

I always tried to avoid those pesky TeX quotes. From looking at the
screen it's hard to tell which characters you're actually dealing
with. And when you figured that it's two grave accents, it's still a
challenge to tell which quote it'll actually print in the PDF.

What about having your editor automatically replace `` by “ or
\quotation{ and likewise '' by ” or }?

Marco