Of course, we use ASCII representations because that is what is convenient vis-à-vis QWERTY. We use QWERTY, because that is what was convenient to learn, becaus

Of course, we use ASCII representations because that is what is convenient vis-à-vis QWERTY. We use QWERTY, because that is what was convenient to learn, because generations of typists were already trained on the typewriter, and because programming was once a menial task, assigned to the kind of people that “only typed” for a living. As often happens with technological progress, the invention of the typewriter caused a regression in some areas; namely, an appreciation for gorgeous typesetting. Sometimes those kinds of tradeoffs are clear wins, but we know that there exist better kinds of input devices than QWERTY (e.g. chorded keyboards for raw speed or virtual keyboards for maximum flexibility)[1]. So, there’s no reason to strictly discount the value of rich typography, especially since at some point both QWERTY and ASCII will disappear. Here are some advantages of introducing robust typesetting to programming environments: • It’s prettier. • It affords equal readability in both color and monochrome [2]. • While your focus is on the narrow cases such as “!= versus ≠”, the strikethough is generally useful. For instance, a freed/disposed variable could be denoted by striking through its name. • Typography could be used to reflect code quality, especially if bad code looks bad. For instance, every time the same variable is assigned a value by a programmer, its font size increases by 1.1 ems. • Using smart quotes would, on average, make denoting string literals easier because we would usually not need to include dumb quotes in the string (admittedly, this has less to do with typesetting, but it is an argument against the tyranny of ASCII/QWERTY). [1] Even though a physical QWERTY keyboard is faster (for me), I usually prefer typing HN comments using the virtual keyboard of my iOS device, because I have ready access to such things as accented characters, em- and en-dashes, and smart quotes. [2] Here's an example from an experiment I did some time ago: https://github.com/noblethrasher/typography/blob/master/fs-typeset-screenshot.png https://github.com/noblethrasher/typography/blob/master/fs-t..., I would have considered it an unqualified success but for want of italics in Visual Studio.