Exponential operator

[Miles]

Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:
> Neither of the natural candidates, a^b and a**b, are an option, as they
> are, respectively, already taken and ambiguous.

I think that a ** b can be used, is not ambiguous except for the
tokenizer of the language. It is the same difference you have with:

  a ++ b  -> identifier 'a', unary operator '++', identifier 'b' (not
parseable)

  a + + b  -> identifier 'a', binary operator '+', unary operator '+',
identifier 'b' (parseable)

I don't know anyone who writes ** to mean multiplication and
dereference, except when obfuscating code. People usually prefer adding
a whitespace between both operators, for obvious readability purposes.

I think it is perfectly reasonable to deprecate current usage of '**'
for the next release, and a few releases later, make '**' a new
operator. I doubt anyone would notice.

Other examples:

  a-- - b
  a - --b

  a && b
  a & &b