Dollar sign ($) on foriegn keyboards? (prothon)

[greg]

This starts with the name, by the way - it evokes the
association of prothotype, which looks quite, er, ungreek

Indeed. It sounds more like an alien race that's
escaped from an upcoming StarCraft expansion pack...

Greg

 

[Mark Hahn]

Indeed. It sounds more like an alien race that's
escaped from an upcoming StarCraft expansion pack...

Yes, but a very advanced alien race

 

[Mark Hahn]

bm = obj..func # get func from obj and make bound method from obj and func
bm = obj$$func # get func from obj and make bound method from self and

func

Don't look to close at the details of the proposal. People over at the
Prothon mailing list are shooting holes in it as I type. For example, the
brain-melting double periods and double dollar-signs are already history.

 

[Peter Otten]

func

Don't look to close at the details of the proposal. People over at the
Prothon mailing list are shooting holes in it as I type. For example, the
brain-melting double periods and double dollar-signs are already history.

You seem to be both determined and open to critique - a good combination
IMHO.

Peer

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

Sorry if I annoy, but I've only posted a total of about 4 thread-starting
messages. The hundreds of messages have been replies.

when I posted my message, 25 of 48 messages visible in my newsreader
were Prothon-related. that's a lot of noise, for all those who read comp.
lang.python because they're interested in Python.

We do have active Prothon mailing lists, but no international members yet,
which is why I asked this particular question here.

if you're serious about doing user research among Python users, you can do a
lot better than posting sporadic questions to a newsgroup. only a small number
of all Python users reads comp.lang.python; only a small number of those that
read the newsgroup posts to it, and only a small number of those that posts are
contributing to your threads. you can get a lot better results and generate a lot
less noise by doing a web-based questionaire, and post a single invitation here
and in other forums where Pythoneers gather.

When I posted my first Prothon messages, I asked if I should stay away from
c.l.p. out of courtesy. I was specifically told to hang around here by
several of the top Pythoneers

strangely enough, I don't see any top Pythoneers contributing to the Prothon
threads. who are they?

</F>

 

[Mark Hahn]

You seem to be both determined and open to critique - a good combination
IMHO.

Well, thank you very much. Why don't you come over and help? (Always
pitching the cause...

 

[Mark Hahn]

you can get a lot better results and generate a lot
less noise by doing a web-based questionaire, and
post a single invitation here
and in other forums where Pythoneers gather.

That is a very good idea. I will do that in the future. Of course, people
will still start babbling on the list about the question anyway, but that I
can't control.

strangely enough, I don't see any top Pythoneers contributing to the Prothon
threads. who are they?

Oh, you are calling my bluff, eh? <grin> I remember Tim Peters off the top
of my head, I'd have to go back through the archives to find the others. Do
you want urls of the archived messages <grin>?

 

[Tuure Laurinolli]

We are considering switching to the dollar sign ($) for self, instead of the
period ( . ) we are using now in Prothon. Ruby uses the at-sign (@) for
self, but our new usage of self also includes replacing the period for some
attribute references, as in obj$func() versus obj.func(), and too many
programs treat that as an email address and screw it up. Also the S in the
symbol $ reminds one of the S in $elf.

Personally I hate the use of $, @, £, # and & in any place where there
are characters immediately on both sides of them. They don't visually
break the word (unless they are highlighted by the editor, of course)
and feel kludgy. & as prefix operator in C works pretty well because
there usually is a space to it's left, and $ and @ as they are used in
prefix role in perl work well enough (of course they are still damn
ugly), but tucking wideand tall characters like that between words is
IMO stupid.

Compare the following:
a$b, a@b, a£b, a#b, a&b
a,b, a.b, a-b, a_b, a!b, a¤b

Some characters like single qutoes could be used for operators like
this, at least they would be visually pleasing:

obj'func()
obj´func()
obj`func()

or possibly other high-line characters

obj^func()
obj¨func()
obj~func()

Personally I like obj~func() and obj'func() most, and the use of ' as
string quoting character only leaves ~, which I actually think would be
pretty good.

Can people from outside the U.S. tell me if typing the dollar sign often
would be a problem in writing code? Is it available and somewhat easy to
type on international keyboards?

The typing is no problem up here in Finland, we have to use the whole
numerical row together with AltGr anyway... You tend to learn to keep
the right thumb on AltGr instead of space

 

[Mark Hahn]

when I posted my message, 25 of 48 messages visible in my newsreader
were Prothon-related.

In my defense, who would have thought that asking if international keyboards
had trouble typing a dollar sign would be a troll question? I would never
had thought to make a web page questionaire for such an innocent sounding
question.

Do you think it's because I added "(prothon)" to the subject? I do that as
a courtesy but maybe it causes trolling.

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

In my defense, who would have thought that asking if international keyboards
had trouble typing a dollar sign would be a troll question?

I'd say it's more of a bike shed question, not a troll.

(if you don't know what I mean, google for "bike shed effect").

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