On Apr 7, 2007, at 15:45 , Lex Spoon wrote:

> tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> writes:
>> Make the parser accept the unicode leftarrow as assign; leave the
>> ':=' for backcompat.
>> Make fileout to text convert leftaror to := for plausible human
>> readability and ascii compat.
>> Make filein convert := to leftarrow for aesthetic compat.
>> Make a hotkey to insert leftarrow. Remember, the $= key is just a
>> hotkey that is already set for you.
>> Let people chose a suitable assign hotkey. Perhaps cmd-=? Perhaps  
>> alt-
>> \? I don't really care at this stage.
>> Profit.
>
>
> This approach will work.  However, we could instead not do all that,
> and use pure ASCII.  ASCII is simple, sufficient, and breathtakingly
> good at interop.

The American SCII also breathtakingly sucks at expressiveness, even  
for many Americans. If you find its expressiveness sufficient, good  
for you. In most parts of the world it is not.

Typewriters with their limited character set fortunately were only a  
small interlude in the history of typography. I'm glad in Smalltalk  
we at least use proportional fonts. Arbitrary punctuation like :=  
really disturbs in reading IMHO. I actually hope we're moving towards  
higher typographical standards (we at least should be able to do what  
Fortress does for example) and not falling back into the stone age of  
computing.

- Bert -