> >> × ??? Over there! > > No, that was a backslash, a three, a two, and a seven. Please try > again. If you disagree, then consider my usual invitation to the > Unicodistas to be extended - I'll take you seriously once you've
Viva la Revolución! > configured all my machines and all my applications to display your > foolishness properly. My consultations fees are very reasonable, I require caviar and champagne only three times a day, not four. While the Hatefulness derivative of the universe is at best zero, but more probably positive, one can choose. These days I choose only systems that do handle Unicode, out of the box. Like this OS and email client. > Additionally, from looking at a unicode table, that character is > visually indistinguishable from the letter x. Again, choice: in my screen × and x are different. While using styli and clay pads might still be neat, let's get on with the program and prefer machines/applications that do support Unicode. (And Unicode 5.0 includes cuneiform, if you are feeling nostalgic.) > If one can not tell the > difference between this ... > > A=x*y; > > and this ... > > A=xxy; # is that x times y, or x squared times y, or the variable xxy? > > then you are, to put it bluntly, fucked. > >> It would be nice if someday using a computer >> didn't mean suffering bad typography. > > It doesn't right now. TeX and LaTeX have existed for ages. > > There is, however, a fairly fundamental difference between documents > intended for a wide non-technical audience and code. With the former it > is worth putting in a little effort to make it look pretty, because the > hoi-polloi think that's important. For code, what matters is clarity, > ease of production and ease of maintenance. KISS applies just as much > to your file format as to your algorithms. > >> In fact, not even monospace fonts are necessarily sacred. They >> are currently necessary if you want to align blocks of text >> across multiple lines, but that could easily be achieved with >> proportional fonts by employing a scheme similar to elastic >> tabstops (<http://nickgravgaard.com/elastictabstops/>). I'm not >> sure this can be implemented well without knowledge of the >> document format, though, so it might not be feasible in a generic >> editor. > > And given that yer average programmer works with several languages, > having one generic editor is a Very Good Thing. >
