<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 15, 2016, at 6:50 PM, Jordan Rose <<a href="mailto:jordan_rose@apple.com" class="">jordan_rose@apple.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">On Jan 15, 2016, at 15:39, Amir Michail <<a href="mailto:a.michail@me.com" class="">a.michail@me.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Jan 15, 2016, at 6:37 PM, Jordan Rose <<a href="mailto:jordan_rose@apple.com" class="">jordan_rose@apple.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""><br class="">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.<br class=""><br class="">Jordan<br class=""></blockquote><br class="">What’s the point of supporting unicode characters in identifiers if almost all of them are too hard to type?<br class=""><br class="">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).<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">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.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Now, I could be convinced otherwise (cf. C++'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraphs_and_trigraphs" class="">digraphs</a>), 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.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>Consider a linear algebra library that makes use of unicode throughout its API. Having to define the shortcuts yourself is less convenient than having them come with the library.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Moreover, the IDE could even help you by showing you what you can type using standard characters to generate a particular unicode identifier as can be automatically determined via unicodealiases in the library source.</div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Best,</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Jordan</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">P.S. As a general note, please include in the first message for a feature <i class="">why</i> 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.</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>