From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=93scar_Fuentes?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 03:55:21 +0200 Message-ID: <87zj6vb65y.fsf@wanadoo.es> 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> <87pp7x2jav.fsf@kuiper.lan.informatimago.com> <87d23s4nt4.fsf@debian.uxu> <7e8ddf8f-163a-4d16-9ce2-25b0cb3f35aa@googlegroups.com> <878uefdhkt.fsf@wanadoo.es> <80c1b614-ad00-48b1-96fd-546b9ba17011@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1427680559 10481 80.91.229.3 (30 Mar 2015 01:55:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2015 01:55:59 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 30 03:55:51 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 1YcOve-0005E2-Q9 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Mar 2015 03:55:50 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58924 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YcOve-0002YQ-27 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:55:50 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39797) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YcOvS-0002YL-5R for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:55:38 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YcOvN-0005cS-49 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:55:38 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:34975) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1YcOvM-0005cK-T8 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:55:33 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1YcOvJ-0004ws-55 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 30 Mar 2015 03:55:29 +0200 Original-Received: from 171.red-80-26-206.adsl.dynamic.ccgg.telefonica.net ([80.26.206.171]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 30 Mar 2015 03:55:29 +0200 Original-Received: from ofv by 171.red-80-26-206.adsl.dynamic.ccgg.telefonica.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 30 Mar 2015 03:55:29 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 35 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 171.red-80-26-206.adsl.dynamic.ccgg.telefonica.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/25.0.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:+neXywz9hO1Z7QCfyu/FYuhwF80= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 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:103433 Archived-At: Drew Adams writes: [snip] >> Precisely, my experience is that Unicode makes things much harder to >> read, and not ony because the problem mentioned above. > > What other problems would you point out in this regard? Derivations of the case you mentioned on your reply to me. Essentially you are bound to a font if you want to ensure readability. When you publish a book or a paper it is natural to select the most convenient font. However, it is not so natural to state "the source code contained on this file is best read with DejaVu Sans Mono, Caveat Emptor". In general, applying the rules of publishing to source code produces nice results on the terminal of the code writer, but surprises elsewhere. Another issue is related to what Pascal Bourguignon mentions, and my reply to Stefan: the abundance of symbols adds mental strain. Furthermore, using shorter textual representations for objects makes the code almost cryptic, moreso when such representations uses symbols taken from a large pool. That's my experience and, IIRC, there are studies that back that impression. The usual advice about descriptive names and self-documenting code applies. Then we have the community problem: you are adding a whole new set of requirements to everyone who needs to work with your code. They must use certain fonts, with certain editors, then learn the conventions about the used/acceptable symbols... This opens a whole new world of opportunities for bikeshedding :-) OTOH, inputting the symbols, which seems to be a hot topic on this thread, was no problem, by my tolerance thresholds.