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On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 08:36:10PM +0200, A. Pagaltzis wrote: > * Tony Finch <dot@xxxxx.xx> [2006-10-27 18:25]: > > It proposes that introductory programming languages should use > > less confusing symbols, such as U+00D7 MULTIPLICATION SIGN > > instead of * and U+2190 LEFT ARROW for assignment. Never mind > > the fact that it's a struggle to even type the things, > > Look, a multiplication sign! > > × ??? Over there! No, that was a backslash, a three, a two, and a seven. Please try again. If you disagree, then consider my usual invitation to the Unicodistas to be extended - I'll take you seriously once you've configured all my machines and all my applications to display your foolishness properly. Additionally, from looking at a unicode table, that character is visually indistinguishable from the letter x. If one can not tell the difference between this ... A=x*y; and this ... A=xxy; # is that x times y, or x squared times y, or the variable xxy? then you are, to put it bluntly, fucked. > It would be nice if someday using a computer > didn't mean suffering bad typography. It doesn't right now. TeX and LaTeX have existed for ages. There is, however, a fairly fundamental difference between documents intended for a wide non-technical audience and code. With the former it is worth putting in a little effort to make it look pretty, because the hoi-polloi think that's important. For code, what matters is clarity, ease of production and ease of maintenance. KISS applies just as much to your file format as to your algorithms. > In fact, not even monospace fonts are necessarily sacred. They > are currently necessary if you want to align blocks of text > across multiple lines, but that could easily be achieved with > proportional fonts by employing a scheme similar to elastic > tabstops (<http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/>;). I'm not > sure this can be implemented well without knowledge of the > document format, though, so it might not be feasible in a generic > editor. And given that yer average programmer works with several languages, having one generic editor is a Very Good Thing. -- David Cantrell | Benevolent Dictator Of The World You may now start misinterpreting what I just wrote, and attacking that misinterpretation.
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