On Mon, Jan 05 2015, Simon Byrne <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> * julia> 3e+1* >> * 30.0* >> >> *julia> 3e + 1* >> >> * 9.154845485377136* >> > > Perhaps this is a good reason to change behaviour such that e is no longer > a constant: it has always seemed bit odd to use a valuable latin singleton > in this way. We could use a unicode script e (U+212F) instead, as suggested > by wikipedia: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerals_in_Unicode#Characters_for_mathematical_constants
I think that using Unicode (outside ASCII) for numeric literals would be more trouble than it is worth (typing, visually distinguishing them from other similar-looking characters, etc). I feel that even if a language supports Unicode, it should be usable with ASCII only. I would prefer if Julia abandonned the abbreviated multiplication syntax altogether: it looked very nifty when I first saw it, but it seems to be a source of problems. I think that expressions with errors are only the tip of the iceberg, I consider bugs that go unnoticed more noxious. Best, Tamas
