[Cuis] New updates: Mathematical symbols in Smalltalk code

[Juan Vuletich]

Hi David,

On 12/3/2015 2:50 PM, dsg wrote:
> Ugh, I hate to take this position in light of your effort, but I'd like to
> propose Cuis head the other direction and adopt a strict a ISO 8859-15
> character set for the core system.  I agree that the changes have greater
> semantic value, but none of these keys are available on standardized
> keyboards, and IMHO, they do more harm than good in regards to the user
> experience.
>
> Consider this, at some point every new Cuis user is forced to stop exploring
> this wonderful new system and google "how do I type an up arrow" and then
> "how do I type an left arrow".  I know there is a switch to change this
> behavior, but it impacts non-coding applications as well... has anyone else
> been surprised to see a left arrow instead of an underscore while taking
> notes in TextEditor?
>
> OTOH, if anyone does a Cuis keyboard kickstarter, I'll buy. :)

I think you are mixing several issues, and I'd prefer to discuss and 
address them as different.

I don't think that the Character set needs to be limited by the 
available keyboard. Keyboards vary a lot. And I think it is OK to 
support $á even if you have a EN-US keyboard (as most systems do).

We have an issue with left arrow and up arrow. Using $_ and $^ for them, 
only when doing assignment or method return, is a way to still support 
the BlueBook. Removing this would still require an explanation to new 
users reading the BlueBook. I don't know how to improve on this.

Another issue is the TextEditor. It sounds reasonable to use the regular 
ASCII / ISO glyphs there, and the current behavior looks like a bug.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich