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0 pointskkoncevicius5y ago0 comments

I think that symbol is used as an approximation of "lambda" character (λ) on a standard US keyboard.

0 comments

It is, and it's not the first language to use it as such. But for many programmers it always triggers the 'escape' alarm in the mind, and it will always cause slight discomfort seeing it used in the raw.

boogies5y ago

IMO it should be like Fennel and just support `lambda` and `λ`. The latter is not even that hard to type, in virtually any free (libre) OS you can just

    $ echo '
    <Multi_key> <Y> <Y> : "Λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    <Multi_key> <y> <y> : "λ" # GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA
    ' >> ~/.XCompose

If you’re limited by a nonfree OS you should be able to patch the problem with free duct tape like Karabiner or AutoHotKey.

And in vim you can just

    <C-K>*l

in insert mode (which can be done with option-l on macOS if you `inoremap ¬ <C-K>*l` https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/230422/type-lambda...).

LoathsLights5y ago

Now imagine doing that same thing for every system you're programming on. And then imagine having to do it for a million different symbols. I'm sure as hell glad you're not in charge of any of this.

2 more replies

michaelhoffman5y ago

In Windows, WinCompose lets you set up compose keys like that, although the default ⋄yy goes to ʎ.

dash25y ago

I don’t think R yet has native Unicode support on every platform.

johannes_ne5y ago

Here is a tweet thread explaining this: https://twitter.com/rabaath/status/1335226691304775681?s=20

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