Re: RFE: Please allow unicode ID chars in identifiers

[dualbus]

On Thu, Jun 01, 2017 at 09:31:24PM -0700, L A Walsh wrote:
[...]
> Absolutely needs?   Do people absolutely need computers?  They are supposed
> to
> be there to serve us and make our life easier.  So you shouldn't be asking
> a lame question that eliminates the machines and media we are using to
> communicate.  And don't try to use absolutes like  "cannot be achieved by
> <no more progress ever>" since that's what you are saying.  Why do we need
> ASCII or keyboards?  Why not go back to ones and zeros entered via flip
> switches
> on a panel?  Any point in time is "arbitrary" and gone by the time you think
> of
> it.  Limiting everything to how it is now == not-living.

I asked a simple question. No need to get rhetorical. No need to label
it as "lame" either, it's not. Please provide *actual* real world use
cases for Unicode identifiers.

Please remember that there's always a *cost* associated with
new features:

- Someone has to do the work of extending the current lexer / parser to
  be able to ingest multibyte character sequences. It helps a bunch if
  you do that work, and submit it for review.

- People then have to test the new implementation, to ensure that there
  are no regressions, and no new bugs introduced. I'm happy to volunteer
  once there's a working implementation.

- There are some questions that must be answered first:

  * How do you how to decode multibyte character sequences into Unicode? 
    Should UTF-8 be assumed?

  * Will the parsing of a script depend upon the user locale?

  * Should this special parsing code be disabled if POSIX mode is
    enabled?

  * Right now `name' or `identifier' is defined as:

      name: A word consisting only of alphanumeric characters and
      underscores, and beginning with an alphabetic character or an
      underscore. Also referred to as an identifier.

    How will the definition look like with Unicode identifiers?

> Variable names like:
> 
> Lēv -- (3 letter word pronounced like Leave), (most recent try...)

Use `Lev'.

> string constants:
> $Φ="0.618033988749894848"
> $ɸ="1.61803398874989485"
> $π="3.14159265358979324"
> $␉=$'\x09'
> $Ⅼ=50   $Ⅽ=100   $Ⅾ=500   $Ⅿ=1000
> $Ⅰ=1    $Ⅴ=5      $Ⅹ=10
> $㎏="kilogram"
> $㎆=1024*$㎅,
> etc...

I'm going to assume the leading `$' in the variable assignment is a
typo.

What prevents you from using?

phi='...'
pi='...'
ht='...'
kg='...'

I'm still not convinced there's an actual need here.

-- 
Eduardo Bustamante
https://dualbus.me/