Re: compiler for Chinese development language

"Hans-Peter Diettrich" <DrDiettrich@compuserve.de> wrote
> Oliver Wong wrote:
>
>> Plus support for ASCII is
>> a lot more widespread than support for Unicode, so if you want to play
>> it safe, you'll stick with ASCII characters for your keywords.
>
> Wouldn't it just be an argument for wider use of Unicode, so that
> keywords can be defined as specific code points (or units?), whose
> visual representation can vary depending on the context, like the
> preferred language of the user?


        No, I don't think so. I'm all for Unicode (I'm a Java programmer,
after all), but I know that if I want my documents to reach the
largest possible argument, I usually have to cater to the lowest
common denominator (which in this case means ASCII).


        I have MP3s of songs in Japanese, for example, but some of my MP3
manipulation tools (e.g. WinAmp, Tag&Rename, etc.) don't have Unicode
support, so I cannot have Japanese characters appearing in the
filename of the ID3 tag. I'd like to, but I can't, less I sacrifice
the usability of all these tools.


        By the same token, it'd be nice if you could use the full set of
Unicode characters for the keywords in a language of your design, but
doing so may mean eliminating the possibility of using certain tools
that aren't Unicode aware.


        For example, I am working on a programming language in which the
division operation is represented by the unicode character U+00F7
instead of the traditional slash character. I don't expect this
language to ever become anything more than a toy language, though,
because of the inconvenience of actually entering in the U+00F7
character.


        - Oliver

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