Path: csiph.com!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder3.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.hal-mli.net!feeder1.hal-mli.net!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed3a.news.xs4all.nl!xs4all!newsgate.cistron.nl!newsgate.news.xs4all.nl!post.news.xs4all.nl!not-for-mail
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 17:17:04 +0000
From: MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.4.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: python-list@python.org
Subject: Re: unicode as valid naming symbols
References: <lgsi07$k1p$1@speranza.aioe.org> <mailman.8531.1395775491.18130.python-list@python.org> <5331D902.3030902@gmail.com> <53321819$0$29994$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <lh1g3h$meg$1@speranza.aioe.org> <4e0ffd3a-8c50-4726-b214-f7b44d4e01ae@googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <4e0ffd3a-8c50-4726-b214-f7b44d4e01ae@googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Precedence: list
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Message-ID: <mailman.8630.1395940631.18130.python-list@python.org>
Lines: 72
NNTP-Posting-Host: 2001:888:2000:d::a6
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:69213

On 2014-03-27 15:51, Rustom Mody wrote:
> On Thursday, March 27, 2014 8:58:51 PM UTC+5:30, Mark H. Harris wrote:
>> On 3/25/14 6:58 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>
>> > To quote a great Spaniard:
>> >      “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you
>> >       think it means.”
>
>>     In~con~theveable !      My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my
>> father, prepare to die...
>
>> > Do you think that the ability to write this would be an improvement?
>> > import ⌺
>> > ⌚ = ⌺.╩░
>> > ⑥ = 5*⌺.⋨⋩
>> > ❹ = ⑥ - 1
>> > ♅⚕⚛ = [⌺.✱✳**⌺.❇*❹{⠪|⌚.∣} for ⠪ in ⌺.⣚]
>> > ⌺.˘˜¨´՛՜(♅⚕⚛)
>
>>     Steven, you're killing me here; argument by analogy does not work!
>
>>     √ = lambda n: sqrt(n)      <===== but this should work...
>
>>     In point of fact, it should be built-in !   OK, IMHO.
>
>> > Of course, it's not even necessary to be that exotic. "Any unicode symbol
>> > that is not a number"... that means things like these:
>
>>    No, any unicode character (except numerals) should be able to begin a
>> name identifier.   alt-l  λ   and  alt-v  √   should be valid first
>> character name identifier symbols.
>
>> > There are languages that can allow arbitrary symbols as identifiers, like
>> > Lisp and Forth. You will note that they have a certain reputation for
>> > being, um, different, and although both went through periods of
>> > considerable popularity, both have faded in popularity since.
>
>>     Actually, there is a recent resurgence of popularity in both common
>> lisp and scheme these days.  But, again, that has nothing to do with my
>> argument.  No modern language should limit the use of certain symbols to
>> say, only math  √ .    The radical symbol is more often than not going
>> to be useful only with math (which , by the way is why it should be
>> built-in as  √ = squre-rooot) but why limit its use elsewhere.
>
>>     Whether this can work in python is also beside the point, because
>> I'm not demanding anything here either, at this point.
>
>> have a good day!
>
> The problem is that mathematicians invent notations in a completely
> laissez-faire manner.
>
> Language implementers having to unrestrainedly keep up would go mad.
> And then us vanilla users (aka programmers) would have to deal with maddened
> implementers.
>
> Observe:
> Good ol infix -- x+y..
> prefix (with paren) -- foo(x)
> prefix without  -- ¬ x
> In case you thought alphanumerics had parens --  sin x
> Then theres postfix   -- n!
> Inside fix   -- nCr (Or if you prefer ⁿCᵣ ??)
> And outside fix -- mod -- |x|
>
> And Ive probably forgotten 2 dozen other common ones
>
You haven't mentioned implicit multiplication: xy

Then there's raising to a power sin²(x), except that what looks like
raising to -1 actually means the inverse function (arcsin).