Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On 2002-10-17 at 22:52:49, Smylers wrote:
>
> > ... I initially misread the bar as an exclamation mark. I realize
> > that this is a sample size of one ...
>
> Make that a sample size of two.
Well, not really. (Presumably there are many other people who also read
Larry's mail without any problems.)
> I think the confusion is actually increased by the period; in this
> font (X11 fd:
> misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1), the period
> is notably larger than the dot of the exclamation point, which
> visually reduces the significance of that tiny gap.
Ah yes. (I'm using a different variant of the same typeface.) If the
font had got a full-stop-sized dot on the bottom of the exclamation (and
question) mark there wouldn't be a problem.
In which case, I withdraw my objection:
* Perl has to make a working assumption that, in general, different
characters look different; if they don't, that's the typeface's
problem not Perl's.
If we pander to every possible conflict that might occur in any
typeface, there'll be very few characters left to use. (For example
in the default Courier font used by 'KEdit' braces look like square
brackets, but we blatantly need to have both of those in the
language.)
And xor isn't particularly common, so the scope for confusion would
be limited.
* I _can_ tell the difference, once I look properly, even in this
font. I was concerned that those with vision difficulties may not
be able to do so. But presumably such people will choose more
sensible typefaces (and probably larger ones).
Somebody fairly recently recommended some decent fixed-width typefaces.
I think it may have been MJD, but I can't find the reference right now
(could be at work).
Smylers
