[swift-evolution] Thoughts on replacing \() with $() or some other symbol

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 6:08 PM, Brandon Knope via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> Actually… we can go pretty scientific on this sort of thing and heat map
> keyboard usage to get a better picture of how “usable” this is.
>
> I pasted a file that contains seven \’s in it and heat mapped it at
> https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/
>
> Even *with* several \’s throughout my source file the majority of my key
> presses take place much closer to the $ key than the \ key.
>
> I think we can all argue about what is clearer or not, but I think for the
> majority of us, the \ key is quite inconvenient compared to the keys around
> where we type the most.
>
> I also ran several of iOS 10’s sample code through the heat map and
> continue to get pretty similar results: the \ is much further from the
> hottest part of the keyboard than the ones closer to where your hand
> usually rests.
>
> Maybe this is flawed, but I think it is hard to argue that the \ is easy
> to type when there are far more usable alternatives.
>

I'm rather unpersuaded by this line of argument. The keyboard is only so
big; it's a stretch to say that any key is less than absolutely usable.
Moreover, \ is next the delete key, which I presume you use frequently and
find no difficulty in reaching.

You know what *is* unusable though? Try finding the $ key on an
international keyboard.


> Brandon
>
>
>
> On Jun 21, 2016, at 6:10 PM, Daniel Resnick via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
> I also disagree for the same reasons that Gwynne and Brent mentioned: I
> find '\(...)' easy to read, fine to type, and consistent with other string
> escaping syntax.
>
> On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>> > I find that typing \(var) is very disruptive to my typing flow. The
>> more I code in Swift, the more I like it, but every time I'm coding and
>> then have to hiccup while typing \ then ( causes me to be annoyed. I know,
>> it's minor, but it isn't a key combination that flows quickly.
>> >
>> > I would much rather have $() or perhaps ${} (like Groovy lang) or
>> perhaps @() to go along with other uses of @ throughout the language.
>>
>> Even though I'm used to Perl's and Ruby's interpolation syntaxes, I
>> immediately liked `\(…)`. It's parsimonious: Rather than taking a third
>> character (besides \ and ") to mean something special in a string literal,
>> it reuses one of the existing ones. There's no need to escape a character
>> you wouldn't otherwise have to touch, or to think of another character as
>> "magical" in a string. It fits nicely with the rest of the syntax, with `\`
>> indicating a special construct and then `()` delimiting an expression, just
>> as they do elsewhere in the language. It's an elegant solution to a problem
>> traditionally solved inelegantly. It's very Swifty in that way.
>>
>> > A shifted key, like $ or @, followed by another shifted key like (,
>> allows for a much faster flow and they are much closer to the home keys
>> than \ which is nearly as far from home keys as possible (and awkward).
>>
>>
>> I don't have any trouble typing it personally. If you find yourself
>> accidentally typing `\9` or `|(`, we could probably offer an error for the
>> former or warning for the latter with a fix-it. But if you're complaining
>> that it takes a tiny fraction of a second longer to type than `$(` would,
>> then honestly, I just can't bring myself to care. Swift optimizes for code
>> reading. If we wanted to optimize for code typing instead, we'd have a very
>> different style.
>>
>> --
>> Brent Royal-Gordon
>> Architechies
>>
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