[Python-ideas] [RFC] draft PEP: Dedicated infix operators for matrix multiplication and matrix power

[Robert Kern]

On 2014-03-14 13:20, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> On 14.03.2014 12:25, Robert Kern wrote:
>> On 2014-03-14 10:16, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>>
>>> I have some questions:
>>>
>>> 1. Since in math, the operator is usually spelt "·" (the center dot,
>>>      or "." but that's already reserved for methods and attributes in
>>>      Python), why not try to use that instead of "@" (which in Python
>>>      already identifies decorators) ?
>>
>> I think the current feeling of the Python core team is against including non-ASCII characters in the
>> language's keywords or operators. Even if that were not so, I would still recommend against it
>> because it would be quite difficult to type. I don't know off-hand the key combination to do it on
>> my native system, and it would change from system to system.
>
> That's a fair argument. How about using the degree symbol instead: "°" ?
>
> (A ° B).T == B.T ° A.T

That's still not ASCII, and I still don't know how to type it off the top of my 
head (US keyboard, OS X), though experimentation shows that Alt-0 does it easily 
enough. I don't know if it's universally that easy.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco