[swift-evolution] Proposal: Make it easier to use unicode identifiers in Swift.

[Jordan Rose]

> On Jan 15, 2016, at 15:39, Amir Michail <a.michail at me.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jan 15, 2016, at 6:37 PM, Jordan Rose <jordan_rose at apple.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi, Amir. What benefit does this feature have for a Swift programmer? In my mind, it makes it harder to reason about what something does, because there may now be multiple names for the same variable.
>> 
>> Jordan
> 
> What’s the point of supporting unicode characters in identifiers if almost all of them are too hard to type?
> 
> With this approach, you can use standard text to type them and have them converted to unicode every once in a while (e.g., on a commit).

I think the primary reason to support Unicode in identifiers is because some programmers use non-English names. Using them for e.g. math terminology is a bonus, but I don't think that's a reason to have special support in the core language.

Now, I could be convinced otherwise (cf. C++'s digraphs <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraphs_and_trigraphs>), but I don't see why you wouldn't just name the APIs something convenient to begin with, or define a shortcut in your editor rather than in the language.

Best,
Jordan

P.S. As a general note, please include in the first message for a feature why you think a particular feature is a good idea for Swift. That saves a bit of time for those of us who may not immediately see the benefit.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20160115/a2759a55/attachment.html>