Re: Allow digits in identifiers (issue 6493072)

[David Kastrup]

Werner LEMBERG <address@hidden> writes:

>> Here is another "cure" for that request: if we can get used to
>> writing
>>
>>   "violin1" = { ... }
>>
>> for defining a name with numbers in it, it would be an obvious
>> syntax extension to allow its invocation as
>>
>>   \"violin1"
>
> Actually, I think this is quite nice.

Well, \violin is the same as $violin but \"violin1" would not be the
same as $"violin1" but rather as $violin1 instead.  Not necessarily an
important discrepancy, but worth mentioning.

>> A somewhat non-obvious disadvantage is that this is likely to confuse
>> the syntax highlighting of editors used to C-like strings, since \"
>> is not a string delimiter at least inside of C strings, and so it
>> might not be considered a string starter.
>
> IMHO, this is not something which should influence our decision.

The syntax \"violin1\" would be proof against that, but its symmetry
makes this seem like the cure being worse than the problem to me.  Also
one should argue that

"violin1\"2" = { ... }

should be called using \"violin1\"2" and we are slowly moving into
terrain where we really don't want to stay for too long.

-- 
David Kastrup