[Python-ideas] Visually confusable unicode characters in identifiers

[Ben Finney]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org>
writes:

> I still let either TeX or XEmacs translate TeX macros for me. I don't
> even know how to type an integral sign in Mac OS X Terminal
> (conveniently, that is -- of course there's always the character
> palette), and if I wanted directed quotation marks (I don't), I'd just
> use ASCII quotes and let XEmacs translate those, too.

Right. So you've solved it for one program only, not the OS which is (or
should be) responsible for turning what you type into characters,
uniformly across all applications you have keyboard input for.

> There ought to be a standard way to get those symbols and punctuation,
> preferably ASCII-based, on any terminal

Definitely agreed with this. Indeed, it's my point: the problem should
be solved in one place for the user of the computer, not separately per
application or framework.

> using the standard Python interpreter.

If you mean that the Python interpreter should be aware of the solution,
why? That's solving it at the wrong level, because any non-Python
program (such as a shell or an editor) gets no benefit from that.

If you mean that the single, one-point solution should work across all
programs, including the standard Python interpreter, then yes I agree.

I'm saying the OS is the right place to solve it, by installing an
appropriate input method (or whatever each OS calls them).

-- 
 \         “In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific |
  `\      pretension and also a deep desire for respectability.” —John |
_o__)                                    Kenneth Galbraith, 1970-06-07 |
Ben Finney