From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Rusi Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:03:39 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <28015c0d-28e0-4577-9728-a3ab05cc48ab@googlegroups.com> References: <87sicvwckx.fsf@wmi.amu.edu.pl> <87wq27yvqg.fsf@debian.uxu> <8d531e99-7260-4263-ac99-09c6871e2708@googlegroups.com> <87vbhq53lf.fsf@debian.uxu> <87a8z23p23.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87lhilx0cf.fsf@debian.uxu> <87twx9360u.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <0d1d19ab-06e9-462d-8867-9a49b1e232d3@googlegroups.com> <87lhil2io1.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87d23w3mzu.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87h9t0a8az.fsf@debian.uxu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1427857524 16281 80.91.229.3 (1 Apr 2015 03:05:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2015 03:05:24 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Apr 01 05:05:24 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Yd8y2-0005Ui-Av for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 01 Apr 2015 05:05:22 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:41377 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Yd8y1-0003ur-7u for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 31 Mar 2015 23:05:21 -0400 X-Received: by 10.182.33.97 with SMTP id q1mr48983043obi.42.1427857420560; Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:03:40 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 10.50.129.98 with SMTP id nv2mr144259igb.1.1427857420538; Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:03:40 -0700 (PDT) Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!l13no67786iga.0!news-out.google.com!db6ni3578igc.0!nntp.google.com!l13no67777iga.0!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: <87h9t0a8az.fsf@debian.uxu> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=117.195.36.129; posting-account=mBpa7woAAAAGLEWUUKpmbxm-Quu5D8ui Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 117.195.36.129 User-Agent: G2/1.0 Injection-Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2015 03:03:40 +0000 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:211191 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:103473 Archived-At: On Wednesday, April 1, 2015 at 7:57:07 AM UTC+5:30, Emanuel Berg wrote: > Richard Wordingham writes: >=20 > > One of the issues with using the full set of Unicode > > characters is that many are easily misread when > > there are no constraints. Many Greek capitals look > > just like Roman capitals, and Latin 'o', Greek '=CE=BF' > > and Cyrillic '=D0=BE' may be indistinguishable. This is > > not a good idea for writing code. >=20 > Good point. In addition, there are many Unicode chars > that aren't human language chars but instead are to be > used in geometric figures, in math and otherwise > scientific/engineering notation, and so on - and those > also collide (or almost so) with for example the > Latin 'o' and probably other letters as well. Of course =E2=80=94 Richard does use the phrase "FULL set of Unicode charac= ters" Currently we see programming languages ALREADY SUPPORTING large swathes of = the 1 million chars for identifier-chars -- mostly the 'Letter' and perhaps the 'number/digit' categories. So there are two somewhat opposite points: 1. Supporting the Babel of human languages in programming identifiers is probably a mistake. In any case if a language must go that way, the choice= of html seems more sane: active opt-in with (something like) a charset declara= tion rather than have the whole truckload thrown at someone unsuspecting. So if a =D0=90 (cyrillic) and the usual A got mixed up, at the least you as= ked for it!! 2. The basic 'infrastructure' of a language in C think "; {}()" operators, = '#' the quotes themselves etc is drawn exclusively from ASCII for historical re= asons that are 2015-irrelevant. Now python (for example) has half a dozen 'quoteds' - strings "... - unicode strings u"..." - triple quoted strings (can contain newlines) """...""" - raw strings r"..." special chars like backslash are not special etc=20 And the chars like =C2=AB =E2=80=B9 seem to be just calling for use