David Storrs skribis 2004-04-14 22:39 (-0700):
> Very top row, one space right of the F12 key. Extremely awkward.
> (This is a US keyboard on a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop.)
That is inconvenient.
> 1) ` looks like it should be a bracketing operator
I think you means circumfix/balanced operator.
> 2) In some fonts, ` is hard to see.
> 3) In some fonts, ` is hard to disambiguate from ' if you can see it.
In some fonts, the difference between () and {} is hard to see.
In some fonts, the difference between 1, l and I is hard to see.
In some fonts, the difference between 0 and O is hard to see.
In some fonts, the , is hard to see.
In some fonts, " and '' look exactly the same.
Don't use those fonts when programming, period. Use a fixed width font.
No fixed width font that I have ever seen makes ` hard to see.
> 4) This argument has not been made strongly enough (...)
I'm not here to do anything weakly, strongly or forcefully.
> 5) I use `` in short utility scripts all the time, and would hate to
> lose it. To anyone who says that that is dangerous and should be
> discouraged--my machine, my code, my problem. (And I work for
> myself, so I am the only one who will be maintaining it.)
As said in several messages in this thread before, `` does not have to
go to support %hash`key. %hash`key has already been succesfully
implemented in perl 5.8.3 and does not harm `` there at all.
> Actually, what I'd like to know is when it was decided that %hash{key}
> meant %hash{key()}?? Was it in one of the Apocalypses? I missed that
> and would like to go back and read the reason for it, since I suspect
> that, given a single-term expression in a hash subscript, it is far
> more likely to be a literal than a function call. It seems that that
> is really the source of the entire 'problem' that this thread
> addresses.
No, it only was an extra motivation.
Juerd
