[eeps] Proposal for /\ and \/ operators

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 27 Feb 2009, at 3:21 am, Kenji Rikitake wrote:
> Many C programmers like me will think \/ as an escaped version of /.

Many C programmers will be very very VERY confused by Erlang's
use of '='.

\/ would be a very easy thing for a C programmer to learn.
(I picked it up in 10 minutes back in 1980.)
But = is a very different animal from anything in C.

I don't think we should let C programmers dictate Erlang syntax.

it is easy to explain \/ to C programmers as "it's how Erlang
>

> And in many places including Japan \ is not a backslash; it's a JPY
> mark.  While Erlang uses ISO-8859-1 as the default code (and in some
> part Unicode), introducing ASCII backslash is confusing.

THIS one I buy as a good argument.
A very good argument, in fact.
Admittedly, the Solaris, Linux, MacOS X, and Windows boxes I have
access to all support Unicode, and all support Japanese keyboards
where Yen and \ are not the same thing.
But if I like to stick with ASCII characters that are easier to
type on _my_ keyboard, it's fair enough for others to want the same.