Re: [whatwg] Unicode -> ASCII copy/paste fallback

David Sheets <kosmo.zb@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, Feb 15, 2015 at 3:16 AM, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 12:34 PM, David Sheets <kosmo.zb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am writing a documentation generation tool for a programming
>>> language with right arrows represented as -> but would like to render
>>> them as →. Programmers are used to writing in ASCII and reading
>>> typeset mathematics. If I present documentation to them via a
>>> purpose-built document browser, I should give them the option (at the
>>> generation/styling stage) of making those documents as pleasing as
>>> possible.
>>
>>
>> Programmers a decade or two ago, maybe, but not today.
>>
>> As a programmer, if I see "→" on a page, select it and copy it, I expect to
>> copy "→", just as I selected.  This sounds like something browsers should
>> actively discourage.
>
> If you're reading documentation which includes types, it's nice to see
> implication arrows but copy valid syntax.

If you are reading documentation, it is nice to see valid syntax. What
if the user is typing the documentation? I can type “→” easily by using
a compose key and would be confused if it does not work in the language.

> Programming communities which use types or other formal methods
> commonly typeset their own documents with mathematical notation. For
> practical reasons, they define their language representations using
> ASCII.
>
> If you have nothing more useful to discuss beyond uninformed,
> opinionated naysaying, I'll be leaving this thread lie.

I find that last paragraph entirely superfluous.


Greetings,
-- 
Nils Dagsson Moskopp // erlehmann
<http://dieweltistgarnichtso.net>

Received on Friday, 9 October 2015 14:40:27 UTC