An inconvenient truth

[Dave]

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gcim2j$fhu$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Dave wrote:
>>>
>>> Anyhow, this segment of the discussion is somewhat orthogonal to the 
>>> rest of it as I think we all agree a Unicode notation will be an 
>>> alternative, not an exclusive choice for template instantiations.
>>>
>>
>> Alternative? That's really what we need; a different group of symbols 
>> that denote exactly the same thing, in Unicode no less <g>
>>
>> This whole discussion is getting goofy.
>>
>> Imagine a code maintainer who has a hard enough time grasping what the 
>> template code is doing, much less having to slog through code where the 
>> original developer(s) decided to use the Unicode "alternative" depending 
>> on what day of the week it was.
>>
>> Beautiful!
>
> Oh, one more thought about that. I think the ASCII/Unicode distinction 
> changes the space a bit. For example, currently using:
>
> int[] a;
>
> or
>
> int a[];
>
> is decided by nothing in particular. But choosing the chevrons vs. the 
> ASCII notation will be largely decided by the toolchain used. That's why I 
> doubt any given codebase will be as heterogeneous as it could be with 
> regard to other choices.
>
> I wonder what choice the online D documentation should make. Using 
> chevrons would be pretty neat, but then random people look at it and are 
> like, "how do I ever type this?" etc.
>
>
> Andrei

That and the toolchain thing is what really bothers me. Plus the fact that 
I've never been a fan of multiple keystrokes for a single character other 
than CAPS, or of having to setup "smartkeys" for anything, especially 
day-today coding <g>

Back to your earlier Eiffel illustration (which I think speaks to a general 
dislike for any "un-C-like" feel more than anything else), what could be 
more "un-C-like" than something that cannot be displayed properly or even 
entered in a plain old editor that just knows ASCII?

- Dave