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0 pointsdesine5y ago0 comments

It is, and it's not the first language to use it as such. But for many programmers it always triggers the 'escape' alarm in the mind, and it will always cause slight discomfort seeing it used in the raw.

0 comments

boogies5y ago

IMO it should be like Fennel and just support `lambda` and `λ`. The latter is not even that hard to type, in virtually any free (libre) OS you can just

    $ echo '
    <Multi_key> <Y> <Y> : "Λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    <Multi_key> <y> <y> : "λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    ' >> ~/.XCompose

If you’re limited by a nonfree OS you should be able to patch the problem with free duct tape like Karabiner or AutoHotKey.

And in vim you can just

    <C-K>*l

in insert mode (which can be done with option-l on macOS if you `inoremap ¬ <C-K>*l` https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/230422/type-lambda...).

LoathsLights5y ago

Now imagine doing that same thing for every system you're programming on. And then imagine having to do it for a million different symbols. I'm sure as hell glad you're not in charge of any of this.

boogies5y ago

> Now imagine doing that same thing for every system you're programming on.

As a matter of fact, I already do, the XCompose way.

  yadm clone /path/to/dotfiles/repo.git¹

As for the vim way, why would I use a system without vim²?

> And then imagine having to do it for a million different symbols.

I don’t know other symbols as useful as this, but sure, either of my solutions scales fine (`yadm clone` shouldn’t get bogged down by any repo smaller than the Linux kernel’s). My system's /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose already has a section for APL’s symbols out of the box.

¹yadm is dumb by the way, any symlink manager + git/hg is probably better

²As it so happens, I do: because vim is bloat and https://sr.ht/~martanne/vis/ fits much better in the ramdisk my OS always runs in — but I’d bet 99.99% ±0.009% of programmers install their OS on an HDD/SSD and don’t care.

thotsBgone5y ago

A better solution is just to use the word 'lambda', and let your text editor render it as a lambda symbol if you want (my emacs does this).

BigJono5y ago

No, that's a shithouse solution.

Everyone that doesn't have a fancy IDE now has 6-8 extra useless characters for something that should be syntax.

1 more reply

michaelhoffman5y ago

In Windows, WinCompose lets you set up compose keys like that, although the default ⋄yy goes to ʎ.

dash25y ago

I don’t think R yet has native Unicode support on every platform.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

boogies5y ago

IMO it should be like Fennel and just support `lambda` and `λ`. The latter is not even that hard to type, in virtually any free (libre) OS you can just

    $ echo '
    <Multi_key> <Y> <Y> : "Λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    <Multi_key> <y> <y> : "λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    ' >> ~/.XCompose

If you’re limited by a nonfree OS you should be able to patch the problem with free duct tape like Karabiner or AutoHotKey.

And in vim you can just

    <C-K>*l

in insert mode (which can be done with option-l on macOS if you `inoremap ¬ <C-K>*l` https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/230422/type-lambda...).

LoathsLights5y ago

Now imagine doing that same thing for every system you're programming on. And then imagine having to do it for a million different symbols. I'm sure as hell glad you're not in charge of any of this.

boogies5y ago

> Now imagine doing that same thing for every system you're programming on.

As a matter of fact, I already do, the XCompose way.

  yadm clone /path/to/dotfiles/repo.git¹

As for the vim way, why would I use a system without vim²?

> And then imagine having to do it for a million different symbols.

¹yadm is dumb by the way, any symlink manager + git/hg is probably better

thotsBgone5y ago

A better solution is just to use the word 'lambda', and let your text editor render it as a lambda symbol if you want (my emacs does this).

BigJono5y ago

No, that's a shithouse solution.

Everyone that doesn't have a fancy IDE now has 6-8 extra useless characters for something that should be syntax.

1 more reply

michaelhoffman5y ago

In Windows, WinCompose lets you set up compose keys like that, although the default ⋄yy goes to ʎ.

dash25y ago

I don’t think R yet has native Unicode support on every platform.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse