Re: The ~

[Alan Watson <alan@...>]

> What happens when you key '~' followed by a space, or
> followed by an '=' sign, or even followed by another '~'?

I don't know, because there isn't a ~ key on my standard
Spanish keyboard. 

Spanish only uses ñ, not ã or õ, and so Spanish keyboards
have a dedicated Ñ key next to the L key. Yes, I can and do
use xmodmap in X (and I can only guess that there is some
similar solution for other systems). However, the use of ~
is an impediment.

I'm used to anglocentric assumptions, but this is the first
time I've encountered a braziliocentric assumption! ;-)

> I confess that one of the initial choices in the design of
> Lua was that it should not be similar to C, because we
> were targeting end users, not experienced programmers. To
> us, ~ reads naturally as "not" and so ~= reads naturally
> as "not equal". Perhaps because ~ is bitwise-not in C...

I have to say that I still tend to regard the spelling of
"~=" as one of the two mistakes in the language. (The other,
more serious mistake, is the equivalence of nil and false.
But at least you are in good company there.)

I'll accept that "~=" might be easier for people who have
studied logic or mathematics (or spent large chunks of their
lives programming in Icon), but I am skeptical that
non-programmers find "~=" easier than "!=". If you really
wanted it to be easier for non-programmers, why didn't you
call it "not ="? Or were you simply ensuring that God was
not jealous of the perfection of your creation?

Regards,

Alan
-- 
Dr Alan Watson
Instituto de Astronomía UNAM