[swift-evolution] [Meta] Let's talk TouchBar + Unicode

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 2:02 AM, Jonathan Hull <jhull at gbis.com> wrote:

>
> On Oct 28, 2016, at 7:22 PM, Xiaodi Wu <xiaodi.wu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A person should not need to buy a special keyboard or device, or know how
> to work the option/alt key, in order to write the less-than-or-equal-to
> operator.
>
>
> But my main point is that the symbols painted on the physical keyboard are
> no longer our only (or even best) method of discovery.  If ≤ comes up in
> the auto-complete when you write < or <=, then it solves the discovery
> issue. We can even use this to teach the option/alt key method (this is the
> what the Mac does to teach command keys associated with menu items).
>

I agree with the first part of that, but IMO the second part misses the
point.

Sure, we should absolutely have better ways of discovering characters we do
not often use. I believe we should have this both at the OS level and, in
the case of writing code in languages that are Unicode-aware, at the IDE
level and baked into the language itself. I have no beef with that.

However, *my* main point is that the Swift's standard library APIs (and the
keywords and syntax at the core of the language) should use a character set
that *requires no discovery whatsoever* for the vast majority of users. It
is difficult enough to master a programming language, more difficult still
to master one's first programming language (and--per the core team--Swift
aims to be a great first programming language to learn); it is _bonkers_ to
pile onto that the need to "discover" (however smoothly that goes) how to
physically input the characters required to invoke some method.

Again, for your own libraries and APIs, go wild. Make a library that allows
people to write equations using the correct mathematical symbols. That'd be
awesome. *Of course* it makes sense then for people to need to learn these
symbols, and of course we could improve the OS and IDE and Swift itself to
make the experience of using that library better. But that shouldn't be the
_standard_ library.

Your point about the search-ability of symbols is an important one, but
> that can also be solved with appropriate UI for discovery of the associated
> (searchable) keywords.
>
> Swift is a language being designed for the next 20-30 years, we shouldn’t
> be limiting ourselves based on technology that is already being replaced
> (as you mentioned many of the devices people use everyday already have a
> soft keyboard… and Ive said the TouchBar was just the beginning of a new
> direction).  We need to aim for where the puck is going to be…
>
> Thanks,
> Jon
>
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