On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 02:23:32AM +0200, Diggory wrote: > On Tuesday, 28 May 2013 at 00:11:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: > >On 5/27/2013 4:28 PM, Hans W. Uhlig wrote: > >>On Monday, 27 May 2013 at 23:05:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote: > >>>I've recently come to the opinion that that's a bad idea, and > >>>D should not > >>>support it. > >> > >>Why do you think its a bad idea? It makes it such that code can > >>be in various > >>languages? Just lack of keyboard support? > > > >Every time I've been to a programming shop in a foreign country, > >the developers speak english at work and code in english. Of > >course, that doesn't mean that everyone does, but as far as I can > >tell the overwhelming bulk is done in english. > > > >Naturally, full Unicode needs to be in strings and comments, but > >symbol names? I don't see the point nor the utilty of it. > >Supporting such is just pointless complexity to the language. > > The most convincing case for usefulness I've seen was in java where > a class implemented a particular algorithm and so was named after > it. This name had a particular accented character and so required > unicode. Lots of algorithms are named after their inventors and lots > of these names contain unicode characters so it's not that uncommon.
I don't find this a compelling reason to allow full Unicode on identifiers, though. For one thing, somebody maintaining your code may not know how to type said identifier correctly. It can be very frustrating to have to keep copy-n-pasting identifiers just because they contain foreign letters you can't type. Not to mention sheer unreadability if the inventor's name is in Chinese, so the algorithm name is also in Chinese, and the person maintaining the code can't read Chinese. This will kill D code maintainability. T -- Don't drink and derive. Alcohol and algebra don't mix.
