Hi.

> I agree 100%.  Readability is of the utmost importance.  Use keyboard macros
> if all you want to do is reduce key strokes.

I don't agree completely with that. Readability is needed, but too many extra
characters just lowers entropy and then you "read a lot to get not much". I
think that's pretty much the history of notation in mathematics. In the middle
ages, you could see this kind of expressions:

	476p137sR123pr43e

Which reads out as

	476 + 137^2 sqrt(123+sqrt(43)) =

Signs became important to get rid of letters indicating operations and things (p
= piu, italian plus, s for squared, r for root of next immediate argument, R for
root of all that follows, e for equals. Actual notation used in middle age
publications). Of course the first is even more readable, contains no symbols at
all. But its meaning is thrown away. Greeks didn't have any symbols until
Diofanto (perhaps Diophantus in english?) started compressing the spoken
language used to describe things. He introduced letters to abbreviate full words
1600 years ago. For greeks, that expression would have been (ignoring base 60
numbers which of course meant 60 digits):

	Four hundred and seventy six plus one hundred and thirty seven multiplied by
itself and then multiplied by the amount that squared gives 123 plus the amount
that squared gives 43 equals:

Readability all right, significance all wrong :))). 

I like binary messages, and when used wisely they can prove to be great.

Andres.