> [dead keys] should be avoided for common operations in newly designed programming languages. If that's the rationale for choosing which symbols should be all

> [dead keys] should be avoided for common operations in newly designed programming languages. If that's the rationale for choosing which symbols should be allowed, then let's ban {} as they require AltGr+Shift in many layouts. And let's avoid <> (used as parentheses, e.g. for templates or XML tags, not as less-than/greater-than) because in ISO keyboards they loose all their symmetry. And what about shells, with /, one of the most used characters, relegated above 7 in many layouts? Jokes apart, I like the choice of ^ or any other characters distinct from * for pointer dereference. To be more precise, I despise the use of the same symbol with different meaning. In C the same * is used for multiplication, pointer dereference and takes part in commments, too. You need full context to parse some cases, or you have to play with spaces: (a)*(b) // multiplication or casted deref? x/ *y // multiplication x/*y // comment start Same with & m&&n // logical and m& &n // masked address