5 ms·

I thought it was strange to be able to use greek characters and the like in the code, and then I arrived at the slide about Custom Terms and Operators[0] and...

by S4M 11y ago

I thought it was strange to be able to use greek characters and the like in the code, and then I arrived at the slide about Custom Terms and Operators[0] and... now I think it's an April fool. [0] http://tpm2016.zoffix.com/#/12 http://tpm2016.zoffix.com/#/12

sp332 11y ago
That's not a joke at all, you really can define those as custom operators if you want to.
dfan 11y ago
Julia lets you use Unicode in your code as well, and it's great. I use Julia for math a lot and it's really nice to go straight from your equations to code with variables named α and ϵ instead of alpha and epsilon. The vim and emacs modes also make it make it easy to enter characters like this. http://iaindunning.com/blog/julia-unicode.html http://iaindunning.com/blog/julia-unicode.html (note: 2 years old)
zoffix222 11y ago
If you watch the actual presentation, that slide was there to make people chuckle. It worked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paa3niF72Nw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paa3niF72Nw
coldtea 11y ago
>I thought it was strange to be able to use greek characters and the like in the code We have been doing that for AGES. Not just in languages like APL, but even in Javascript, Go and tons more... https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names
- S4M 11y ago
  Yes, Unicode variables are a thing, but I am afraid it makes the language less approachable if it requires a special keyboard or at least some tweaks in the IDE to input those characters - and I say that as someone who added some macros in emacs to enter French accentuated characters with an American keyboard. I think it's one of the reason APL isn't much used these days...
  - raiph 11y ago
    Perl 6 does not require use of Unicode characters in code and does not require a special keyboard. It does require some mechanism to input Unicode if that's what you want to do but that wil be true for any language -- it's nothing to do with Perl 6.

by S4M 11y ago

sp332 11y ago

That's not a joke at all, you really can define those as custom operators if you want to.

dfan 11y ago

Julia lets you use Unicode in your code as well, and it's great. I use Julia for math a lot and it's really nice to go straight from your equations to code with variables named α and ϵ instead of alpha and epsilon. The vim and emacs modes also make it make it easy to enter characters like this. http://iaindunning.com/blog/julia-unicode.html http://iaindunning.com/blog/julia-unicode.html (note: 2 years old)

zoffix222 11y ago

If you watch the actual presentation, that slide was there to make people chuckle. It worked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paa3niF72Nw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paa3niF72Nw

coldtea 11y ago

>I thought it was strange to be able to use greek characters and the like in the code We have been doing that for AGES. Not just in languages like APL, but even in Javascript, Go and tons more... https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names

S4M 11y ago
Yes, Unicode variables are a thing, but I am afraid it makes the language less approachable if it requires a special keyboard or at least some tweaks in the IDE to input those characters - and I say that as someone who added some macros in emacs to enter French accentuated characters with an American keyboard. I think it's one of the reason APL isn't much used these days...
- raiph 11y ago
  Perl 6 does not require use of Unicode characters in code and does not require a special keyboard. It does require some mechanism to input Unicode if that's what you want to do but that wil be true for any language -- it's nothing to do with Perl 6.