[swift-evolution] Beyond Typewriter-Styled Code in Swift, Adoption of Symbols

[Félix Cloutier]

If all the hard symbols are automatically converted by the editor, why can't the editor show you a "pretty" view and save as "regular" text? Why does it need compiler involvement if the problem can entirely be addressed in UI space?

> Le 29 août 2017 à 06:14, John Pratt via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> a écrit :
> 
> Hi Chris: Please read the article that I originally posted and mailed to the Swift team
> before shooting down what I said:
> 
> http://www.noctivagous.com/nct_graphics_symbols_prglngs_draft2-3-12.pdf <http://www.noctivagous.com/nct_graphics_symbols_prglngs_draft2-3-12.pdf>
> 
> Alan Kay’s FONC project rewrote entire projects in far less code by
> using symbols in the Maru and Nile programming languages.  Alan Kay, as you know,
> is the father of Smalltalk.  Unicode symbols can be very powerful.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Aug 29, 2017, at 12:28 AM, Chris Lattner <clattner at nondot.org <mailto:clattner at nondot.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 9:58 PM, John Pratt via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I think the editor would recognize that "<==“ was just
>>> typed and replace it with the unicode character ≤ immediately.
>>> 
>>> Likewise, x^2 would be recognized and turned into x with 2 in superscript.
>>> 
>>> As for how the UI would work for other types of symbols,
>>> there are all kinds of techniques for that.  That is a UI issue,
>>> for a UI design team to address.  XCode’s code completion is just one
>>> example of how UI can manage input issues.
>> 
>> There is no reason to change the language to enable this.  Editors could do this automatically.  Alternatively, you could just use a programming font with ligatures for operators, see e.g.:
>> https://medium.com/larsenwork-andreas-larsen/ligatures-coding-fonts-5375ab47ef8e <https://medium.com/larsenwork-andreas-larsen/ligatures-coding-fonts-5375ab47ef8e>
>> https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode <https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode>
>> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MonospacedProgrammingFontsWithLigatures.aspx <https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MonospacedProgrammingFontsWithLigatures.aspx>
>> 
>> -Chris
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
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