[eeps] Proposal for /\ and \/ operators

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 26 Feb 2009, at 9:34 pm, Bob Ippolito wrote:
> I have the same feedback. I like the functionality, but /\ and \/ are
> kinda ugly and very unintuitive.

How can the standard mathematical symbols be "unintuitive"?

Mathematical:

/\ is a '<' rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
    You get the lesser of the arguments.
\/ is a '>' rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
    You get the greater of the arguments.
At the very least it has _something_ to do with < and >.

Musical:

/\ looks like a diminuendo sign rotated anticlockwise.
    The result indeed gets smaller.
\/ looks like a crescendo sign rotated anticlockwise.
    The result indeed gets bigger.
At the very least it has _something_ to do with magnitude.

Visual:

/\ The top is smaller than the bottom.
    You get the smaller argument.
\/ The top is bigger than the bottom.
    You get the bigger argument.
It doesn't get much more iconic than this, people!

Of course the Unicode characters, which should be allowed,
look nicer, just as the Unicode characters look better
than =< and >=, which should also be allowed.
/\ and \/ are just the closest we can get in ASCII;
they are, as the EEP points out, the historical reason
why the backslash character exists in the first place.