Adding Unicode operators to D

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gdr4pe$2uje$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> I think that's the conclusion I'm coming too as well.  While the use
>> of Unicode would have some advantages, there are various technical
>> issues with it (like I haven't been able to figure out how to get the
>> DOS console in Windows to display UTF-8).  I think those issues can
>> all be solved, but it would be a large distraction for the D
>> community.  Better to let some big, well-funded, massively popular
>> language pioneer in this area.  If some language with a billion
>> programmers decided to use Unicode, then you can bet that most of
>> these infrastructure problems would start to disappear quickly as
>> annoyed programmers start scratching their own itches and as they
>> start complaining to the people who write the tools they use.
>>
>> Realistically, if I complain to any software vendor now that their
>> editor doesn't work well with D because they don't have funky Unicode
>> functionality, the response is likely to be "Sounds like a problem
>> with D, whatever that is".  If the language were Java or C++, though,
>> they would have little choice but to take the complaint seriously,
>> regardless of the effort required.
>
> Unfortunately, you might be right in that D is not currently in a position 
> to force the issue.

My various thoughts:

Whatever language does end up forcing the issue is going to come up against 
(inertial) resistance, either successfully or unsuccessfully. If D, right 
now, were to be the language to attempt to force the issue, then like you 
two have said, it would probably be unsuccesful. So, in order for the 
unicode transition to ever be successful, it would have to be some other 
language (or a version of D later down the road) that forces the issue.

However, if D and/or other similarly less-than-mainstream (I hate referring 
to D that way, BTW) languages already had useful unicode support in a way 
that *wasn't* trying to force the issue (ie, purely optional, with perfectly 
acceptable ASCII fallbacks) when that "force the issue" language does come 
along, then that can help cut down on the resistance that the "force the 
issue" language encounters. We might not be able to crack the 
chicken-and-the-egg, but we could help weaken it by providing a little extra 
incentive of out own (again, as long as it was in a way that wasn't 
forceful).

I do agree, though, with the people who have said that D has more important 
things to focus on right now than unicode. And I would add that I see most 
of D's biggest strengths as things where it cleans up and fixes the mistakes 
made by the more pioneering languages like C++ or Java. So I think it would 
be in true D style (in a good way) to wait for something else, like maybe 
Fortress, to go muck around in unicode, and then we can design our unicode 
to clean up the mistakes those languages will inevitably end up making 
(instead leading our own language into a corner by making those "pioneer" 
mistakes ourselves). Plus, hopefully by that time we'll have finally taken 
care of the more pressing issues that we're currently facing. (Like 
eliminating foreward reference issues!! Please!!)

I hope that all made sense. I guess my summary is: Hold off on official 
unicode stuff for now and learn from other's unicode mistakes. But, if we do 
put official unicode stuff in right now, keep it in a way that doesn't force 
the issue. And as for unofficial unicode stuff, I say go ahead, play around 
with it, post it, do whatever.