Re: Eclipse

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From: David Cantrell
Subject: Re: Eclipse
Date: 13:09 on 29 Oct 2006
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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