Re: At sign ``@'' in key

[steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@...>]

On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 8:59 PM, Rena <hyperhacker@gmail.com> wrote:
> I had pondered before the idea of allowing '@' and '$' in names, at
> least at the beginning. That then led to the idea of functions named
> only @() and $(), which function like prefixes in that they don't need
> parentheses for a single argument, e.g.:

It's an entertaining idea to allow $ and @ in identifiers, but special
meanings are going to confuse things. (Imagine being responsible for
documenting this feature!).  When I see $var, I see a plain variable;
$(var) is something else. Years of the Unix shell allow for no other
meaning to take over.

If $ became a valid variable, then there would be a rush to be the
first library to colonize it (think of JQuery).  Obfuscated Lua
programs could become so much easier!

steve d.