Time we switched to unicode? (was Explanation of this Python language feature?)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:19:50 +1100, Chris Angelico wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Mark H Harris <harrismh777 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> I personally think the answer is extended key maps triggered by meta
>> keys shift ctrl opt alt command |  which call up full alternate
>> mappings of Greek|Latin|Math|symbols &c which can be chosen by
>> mouse|pointing device.
>>
>>
>> The mac calls these keyboard viewer, and character viewer. In that way
>> the full unicode set can be available from a standard qwerty keyboard
>> without modifying the hardware right away.
> 
> I can get up a character map on any platform fairly easily, and if not,
> I can always Google the name of the character I want and copy and paste
> from fileformat.info or some other handy site. It's not that hard. But
> if I want to say "copyright", it's still quicker for me to type nine
> letters than to hunt down U+00A9 © to paste in somewhere. 

I hear what you are saying, but that's not *necessarily* the case. Back 
when I was a Mac user, in the 1980s and 90s, *every* application accepted 
the same keyboard shortcuts for the entire Mac character set. Nearly all 
of the chars had trivially simple mnemonics, e.g Option-p for π. Now, I 
don't happen to remember what the mnemonic for © (it has been 20 years 
since I was regularly using a Mac), but I remember it used to be really 
easy. Easier to type Option-whatever and get a © than typing "copyright".

So, if applications could standardise on a single interface for at least 
the common Unicode characters [er, common for who? English speakers? 
Japanese people? Arabs? Dutch?] then things would be more like 1984 on a 
Mac...



-- 
Steven