unicode as valid naming symbols

[Mark H Harris]

On 3/25/14 6:58 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> To quote a great Spaniard:
>
>      “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you
>       think it means.”

    In~con~theveable !      My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my 
father, prepare to die...

> Do you think that the ability to write this would be an improvement?
>
> import ⌺
> ⌚ = ⌺.╩░
> ⑥ = 5*⌺.⋨⋩
> ❹ = ⑥ - 1
> ♅⚕⚛ = [⌺.✱✳**⌺.❇*❹{⠪|⌚.∣} for ⠪ in ⌺.⣚]
> ⌺.˘˜¨´՛՜(♅⚕⚛)

    Steven, you're killing me here; argument by analogy does not work!

    √ = lambda n: sqrt(n)      <===== but this should work...

    In point of fact, it should be built-in !   OK, IMHO.

> Of course, it's not even necessary to be that exotic. "Any unicode symbol
> that is not a number"... that means things like these:

   No, any unicode character (except numerals) should be able to begin a 
name identifier.   alt-l  λ   and  alt-v  √   should be valid first 
character name identifier symbols.

> There are languages that can allow arbitrary symbols as identifiers, like
> Lisp and Forth. You will note that they have a certain reputation for
> being, um, different, and although both went through periods of
> considerable popularity, both have faded in popularity since.

    Actually, there is a recent resurgence of popularity in both common 
lisp and scheme these days.  But, again, that has nothing to do with my 
argument.  No modern language should limit the use of certain symbols to 
say, only math  √ .    The radical symbol is more often than not going 
to be useful only with math (which , by the way is why it should be 
built-in as  √ = squre-rooot) but why limit its use elsewhere.

    Whether this can work in python is also beside the point, because 
I'm not demanding anything here either, at this point.

have a good day!

marcus