This seems to be a solved problem, if we want it to be. We can easily enough teach our programming editors either that typing < followed by = should convert to

This seems to be a solved problem, if we want it to be. We can easily enough teach our programming editors either that typing < followed by = should convert to ≤ automatically unless you press some sort of literal key first (say Esc), or that typing some sort of compose key (say Alt Gr) followed by < and then = should convert to ≤.