Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question

[Emanuel Berg]

Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> writes:

> My mind is made up, but interesting info like how to
> type Greek are one reason why I commented at all.

If discussion was only between people whose minds
weren't made up, there would be a lot less of it.
And people who have their minds made up and discuss
what their minds are made up about are not less likely
to change their minds in the future compared to
anyone else.

> I think keyboards and keys are an important issue

Indeed, pick up a random book om computers or
programming. Chances are they will mention the while
loop and the for loop but it doesn't say how you
should position your body for the most mental-physical
power, or even what keys should be hit by what
fingers, or for that matter anything on the
bio-mechanics of shortcuts and finger habits.

It is *very* strange! Because a kid can understand the
while loop, and many kids do, a kid don't know crap
about self-programming or ergonomics - I didn't know
that people could have consistent pain, suffer from
self-doubt, etc., until I was... actually I don't know
when I realized such things.

> and the current state of the art falls far short.
> Some important keys are completely missing. I have
> no idea why HELP, UNDO, COPY, PASTE, REDO, MINIMIZE,
> SCREEN LOCK, etc. are completely MIA. Other keys
> just gather dust. (SysRq, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break,
> KP_/, KP_* What are these designers thinking.

Good question! But you know how to rewire those to
your liking, so it isn't that bad, is it?

> That's why I asked how many additional characters
> are proposed for lets say Python. More than a few
> would be a problem. I put the not sign (¬) on
> shifted backspace and still look in my xmodmap file
> to remember where it is. ... I'd rather not need the
> additional characters.

If you include but a few, you might as well include
zero and don't have to deal with any
translation/interface overhead getting those few to
work and be portable/communicatable as well.
The Unicode not sing does not turn a bad programmer
into a good one nor a bad program into anything less
bad. Don't do it.

-- 
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573