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Modern languages do have unicode operators. See for example Julia[1] and Raku[2] [1] https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/mathematical-operations/#Numeric-C

by zokier 3y ago

Modern languages do have unicode operators. See for example Julia[1] and Raku[2] [1] https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/mathematical-operations/#Numeric-Comparisons https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/mathematical-operati... [2] https://docs.raku.org/language/operators.html https://docs.raku.org/language/operators.html

toastal 3y ago
Agda & PureScript support it, Haskell with the Unicode pragma too
lizmat 3y ago
Note that the Raku Programming Language has pure ASCII equivalents for all operators as well, for the Unicode challenged. E.g. ≠ vs !=, ≤ vs <=, ≥ vs >= etc. etc.
- sundarurfriend 3y ago
  Same with Julia too.
nottorp 3y ago
That's fun but how do I type them?
- chrismorgan 3y ago
  A Compose key is the best general-purpose way. For example: • ≥: Compose > = • ≠: Compose / = You can define your own sequences too, if you want. I like to type exactly what I mean, including curly quotes and dashes and narrow no-break spaces and emoji and so on, but often didn’t like the default mappings (if there were any). As an example, I use this for curly quotes (look at the keys’ locations on the keyboard to understand—it’s coherent): <Multi_key> <semicolon> <semicolon> : "‘" <Multi_key> <apostrophe> <apostrophe> : "’" <Multi_key> <colon> <colon> : "“" <Multi_key> <quotedbl> <quotedbl> : "”" (The only thing I can think of where I don’t normally type what I’d theoretically like to is hyphens, where I use ASCII’s HYPHEN-MINUS instead of the proper HYPHEN. I’ve never come up with a mapping I like—what with en dash, em dash, minus, &c.—and it’s also too common for fonts to lack a HYPHEN glyph.) When you’re used to this sort of thing, it comes completely naturally. Somewhat more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Fun but I tend to type code fast. Really dont need an extra modifier key. Not to mention there isnt one on your regular keyboard.
    - chrismorgan 3y ago
      > Fun but I tend to type code fast. When you’re used to it, and given the comparative infrequency of the characters you use it for, it’s not much of a burden—just ~three key presses instead of one. > Really dont need an extra modifier key. Note that Compose isn’t a modifier key in the most common understanding of the word: you don’t hold it down while you press the others (which would certainly be awful for its ergonomics), but you press keys in sequence. > Not to mention there isnt one on your regular keyboard. On my current laptop I map RAlt to Compose. On my previous laptop, it was RMenu. There’s always at least one key there that you literally never need to use, and I find the ergonomics for thumb usage very comfortable. (But I really wish Space was split into at least two keys. It’s so stupidly large.)
      - kps 3y ago
        > (But I really wish Space was split into at least two keys. It’s so stupidly large.) If you can stand the tiny distant Return, get a Japanese keyboard.
    - kps 3y ago
      Microsoft's clumsy extension of IBM's short-sighted PC keyboard (and CUA) has a lot to answer for. It's too bad they didn't do a better job of ripping off either Apple keyboards or Unix workstation keyboards. I personally use AltGr (Mac Option) more than compose, since it's tractable to have almost the same layout on *nix and Mac. IIRC the default Mac layout has ≠ and ≤ ≥ in the obvious places, and they are just as easily touch-typed as shifted characters. Compose is nice (on xkb systems) in that it's very easy to add personal customization to ~/.XCompose for task-specific characters.
    - layer8 3y ago
      It’s not a modifier key, it’s a separate key you type before, like an escape character. I use the Caps Lock key for it. For very common sequences that you always want to have mapped you can use a tool like AHK so that you don’t have to press Compose before. The beauty of Compose though is that it works everywhere, and that it gives you access to a much larger character set in a very mnemonic way. For example, “ga” can map to “α” (“greek a”), “gb” to “β”, and so on. “2-” can map to “–“ (en dash), “3-“ to “—“ (em dash), “3.” to “…”, “c,” to “ç”, “i,” to “į”, “e,“ to “ę”, and so on. There are a lot of patterns that apply to a whole range of characters, it’s a bit like how commands combine in Vim.

by zokier 3y ago

toastal 3y ago

Agda & PureScript support it, Haskell with the Unicode pragma too

lizmat 3y ago

Note that the Raku Programming Language has pure ASCII equivalents for all operators as well, for the Unicode challenged. E.g. ≠ vs !=, ≤ vs <=, ≥ vs >= etc. etc.

sundarurfriend 3y ago
Same with Julia too.

nottorp 3y ago

That's fun but how do I type them?

chrismorgan 3y ago
A Compose key is the best general-purpose way. For example: • ≥: Compose > = • ≠: Compose / = You can define your own sequences too, if you want. I like to type exactly what I mean, including curly quotes and dashes and narrow no-break spaces and emoji and so on, but often didn’t like the default mappings (if there were any). As an example, I use this for curly quotes (look at the keys’ locations on the keyboard to understand—it’s coherent): <Multi_key> <semicolon> <semicolon> : "‘" <Multi_key> <apostrophe> <apostrophe> : "’" <Multi_key> <colon> <colon> : "“" <Multi_key> <quotedbl> <quotedbl> : "”" (The only thing I can think of where I don’t normally type what I’d theoretically like to is hyphens, where I use ASCII’s HYPHEN-MINUS instead of the proper HYPHEN. I’ve never come up with a mapping I like—what with en dash, em dash, minus, &c.—and it’s also too common for fonts to lack a HYPHEN glyph.) When you’re used to this sort of thing, it comes completely naturally. Somewhat more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key
- nottorp 3y ago
  Fun but I tend to type code fast. Really dont need an extra modifier key. Not to mention there isnt one on your regular keyboard.
  - chrismorgan 3y ago
    > Fun but I tend to type code fast. When you’re used to it, and given the comparative infrequency of the characters you use it for, it’s not much of a burden—just ~three key presses instead of one. > Really dont need an extra modifier key. Note that Compose isn’t a modifier key in the most common understanding of the word: you don’t hold it down while you press the others (which would certainly be awful for its ergonomics), but you press keys in sequence. > Not to mention there isnt one on your regular keyboard. On my current laptop I map RAlt to Compose. On my previous laptop, it was RMenu. There’s always at least one key there that you literally never need to use, and I find the ergonomics for thumb usage very comfortable. (But I really wish Space was split into at least two keys. It’s so stupidly large.)
    - kps 3y ago
      > (But I really wish Space was split into at least two keys. It’s so stupidly large.) If you can stand the tiny distant Return, get a Japanese keyboard.
  - kps 3y ago
    Microsoft's clumsy extension of IBM's short-sighted PC keyboard (and CUA) has a lot to answer for. It's too bad they didn't do a better job of ripping off either Apple keyboards or Unix workstation keyboards. I personally use AltGr (Mac Option) more than compose, since it's tractable to have almost the same layout on *nix and Mac. IIRC the default Mac layout has ≠ and ≤ ≥ in the obvious places, and they are just as easily touch-typed as shifted characters. Compose is nice (on xkb systems) in that it's very easy to add personal customization to ~/.XCompose for task-specific characters.
  - layer8 3y ago
    It’s not a modifier key, it’s a separate key you type before, like an escape character. I use the Caps Lock key for it. For very common sequences that you always want to have mapped you can use a tool like AHK so that you don’t have to press Compose before. The beauty of Compose though is that it works everywhere, and that it gives you access to a much larger character set in a very mnemonic way. For example, “ga” can map to “α” (“greek a”), “gb” to “β”, and so on. “2-” can map to “–“ (en dash), “3-“ to “—“ (em dash), “3.” to “…”, “c,” to “ç”, “i,” to “į”, “e,“ to “ę”, and so on. There are a lot of patterns that apply to a whole range of characters, it’s a bit like how commands combine in Vim.