RE: [Templates] Converting from old template language which allows nested tags into TT template

[Thomas, Mark - BLS CTR]

> > Well, because _ is a valid subroutine/variable name char, it would
> > require surrounding whitespace, at least in certain
> contexts. I believe that's what did it in. Nothing to do with
> readability/typability.
>
> They had already addressed that, tho.  Larry said in the
> relevant Apocalypse:
>
> > The only downside to that is the space between a variable
> name and the
> > operator is required. This is to be construed as a feature.

I chatted with Allison Randal at OSCON shortly after this decision was made (because I liked the _). IIRC, she said that the desire for orthogonality in Parrot influenced the decision to switch.

> So I dunno.  _ works well in TT2, as we see.  And anyways, if
> you're going to toss _, where did ~ come from?  Just seems
> like a desperate choice to me (i.e. "now, which piece of
> punctuation do we have left over ... ?").

I agree! Hey, we got the whole UTF-8 space to work with, don't we? How about the ellipsis character "…" (0x2026) or an em dash "—" (0x2014). Seem like suitable choices to me ;-)