--- Iain 'Spoon' Truskett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > * Dyck, David ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [31 Oct 2002 19:21]: > > [...] > > You could use the Character Map accessory to put > > the character into the clipboard, or > > press the alt and hold the alt key while typing 0171 (or 0187) > > < alt+0171 > > > alt+0187 > > To be honest, as easy as it is to type ^a^v<< or ^k<<,[1] it's still > typing an awful lot just to get a character. Surely the Perl operator > Huffman encoding should take into account the length of time it takes > to > type the darn thing.
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of some Digital Equipment .. err .. Compaq .. err .. HP building, there's a guy getting major wood because ALL THAT WORK that he chipped in so many years ago on the 'X' keyboard input routines is about to be justified. FINALLY, someone in the US is going to actually use the [compose] key. Woo-hoo! (Except for the PCLinux guys, who didn't get a "Compose" key. But maybe they can liquid-paper over the "Windows" key and write in "Compose" and «voila»!) [Note smooth, casual insertion of guillemets into daily conversation ...] How much of the "length of time it takes to type the darn thing" is because right now we don't use those symbols? Most PC keyboards make the tilde (~) character a PITA by putting it out at top-left or top-right (or, worse, just below backspace). The reason -- most people aren't writing perl or awk code, and so aren't using that symbol. This is, IMO, one of those cases where if we suck it up and adopt the operator, and if the operator's as useful as it seems, then it will take about two weeks before this problem is history. Everyone will know how to generate the symbol, with the same encoding, on however many keyboards. And Tim O'Reilly will be happy because for once newbies will actually READ the preface chapter of the perl books, in which conventions and fonts and such are explained -- that's where the first of the masonic secrets (Perlish rite) will be illuminated. =Austin PS: MSIE doesn't like alt-####. I'm still doing copy and paste. But I have CONFIDENCE... __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search new jobs daily now http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/
