Here is a set of questions for European-Time-Zone mastodontists especially.

- Does your keyboard have a $ on it?
- If not, is there a different currency symbol you have instead?
- When a programming language makes semiregular use of $ (for example, for string substitution) does this annoy you?

@mcc Slovenian layout has $ on Shift+4; € is AltGr+E (note, this is the layout that Windows and Linux use, and is the same as Croatian layout; MacOS has a very different layout, and since 2009 there's also a layout defined by the Slovenian Standards body, but nothing ever implemented that).

@mcc Speaking of programming, []{} are AltGr+FGBN and ^ is AltGr+3 followed by a space; since these are annoying, I made my own layout that replaces ćĆđĐ with {[}], since we don't need these letters and added ^ as a non-dead key.

@mcc spanish keyboard has it as shift+4, so it's not that out of the way. I'm more annoyed at {} and [] requiring AltGr and keys that are very out of the way

Pic of my keyboard for reference. It's 10 years old, so some keys are a bit worn out, but still readable

@mcc A programming language where all currency symbols have equivalent semantics. Discuss.

@synec Oh, i'm considering it

@mcc Finnish keyboard here (Macbook) and I have $, €, ¢ and ¥.

Dunno if even more.

The reason I ask this question is I'm about to add $ as a special character to this little programming language I made and I am seriously considering teaching the lexer to silently transform € into $ as a courtesy to european users

That would inevitably wind up confusing and frustrating someone, somewhere, so I'm trying to figure out whether the convenience in one place outweighs frustration in another. How do I MAXIMIZE UTILS

@mcc jesus no, that's a terrible idea :D

@floooh thank you for your sincerity

@mcc € and $ are easy, then it gets complicated

@ConnyDuck actually sincerely curious if you needed to type a ¥ what would you do

@mcc both UK and DE keyboards have $ on Shift-4

@zhenech @mcc

IT too

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Italian_Keyboard_layout.svg

with our local keyboard, []{} are a much bigger pain to type (one of the reason why a lot of programmers in Italy use keyboards with US layout)

@mcc The modern danish Mac keyboards does indeed have a $ key along with a € key. The weird thing is that it is a dedicated key right under esc. This makes $ very natural to use when programming.

@kanongil American cultural hegemony does something positive for the first time ever!

@oblomov @zhenech i wonder if this creates a subtle incentive for Italians to write LISP lol

@mcc Typing $ is still easier on a German keyboard than typing € because $ was there from the start and € was awkwardly shoed in later.

@mcc Norwegian keyboard (Mac) here, so

1) yes, it's Shift-4 (Option-4 gives me €, as AltGr-4 IIRC would on a PC style keyboard)
2) see previous
3) No, not at all :)

@mcc you should only do that according to locale.

The S in $ is short for "Substitute"

@mcc As a £ user, this reminds me of two things: firstly the original INTERCAL using ¢, and secondly that in Japan, ¥ is if anything expected to map to backslash.

@mcc @zhenech

ROTFL

wel, if so, it didn't work with me, for sure 8-D

@mcc commit to the bit, use ƒ exclusively

@ratsnakegames no no no that's a shorthand for "function"

@mcc apparently, one euro is about 2.2 functions

@mcc
* Yes (shift + 4)
* I have additionally €£¢ (not quite sure if the last i actually a currency symbol)
* No. i just see it as "some other special character"

@4censord@unfug.social @mcc@mastodon.social it's not used a lot anymore but ¢ is usually a subdivision of the $

@mcc Apologies, that was an impulse-reply ;)

It's just that I think that localization efforts in programming languages should be limited to comments, otherwise it's just confusing because you create a little local nationality bubble.

For instance I worked with a Chinese team a couple of years ago and they wrote their code comments in Chinese.

But we could still work effectively together because the actual code (variable and function names) were in English.

@floooh Yeah I noticed this also, with Chinese devs! I wonder if it might lead to better code because I noticed (possibly because the code reader might not understand the variable names) the code comments were unusually verbose.

@mcc
From a Swedish layout perspective, I don't think it needs to be a concern.

There are plenty of other characters used in pretty much all programming languages that already require reaching for Alt-Gr (Like $ does.).

Like {}[]|\@~

(Typed on a UK mac keyboard for extra wtf value.)

@mcc in the european layouts I’m familiar with, $ is usually *easier* to type than €, the € being a “recent” addition 😅.
For ex. on french AZERTY, $ is available unshifted, whereas you’d need AltGr-E for €.
I’m also pretty sure plenty of people have no idea how to type € on their keyboard either, and will just spell EUR when needed !

That being said, that’s a very cool and considerate idea! Why not go further and transform *every* currency symbol ? $ will still be there if it’s easier to reach

@cedric $€¥ at least would certainly cover a very large percentage of the globe. Add ₽ if we're going for landmass I suppose

@mcc what's the pipe short for

@Sindemore IIIIIIIIII

@mcc @zhenech

OK just for kicks I'm asking my Italian followers if they've felt a nudge to learn LISP because of the parenthesis accessibility

https://sociale.network/@oblomov/114841137226150641

@oblomov @zhenech haha, would you like a boost

@mcc @synec Sadly this feature hasn't been merged yet in PHP 🤔 https://phpc.social/@nielsdos/112195856947093597

@mcc @zhenech

If you feel like it, why not. It's the most ridiculous poll I've ever made (and I've made some seriously ridiculous one), but I'm still curious to see if I get any positive replies 8-D

@mcc yes, and it does not annoy me ... mostly because I have a US keyboard. The times I have to use a Nordic keyboard (which still has the $and even the £ symbol), it very much annoys me to program

@oblomov @zhenech @mcc Does that put {} on 4th layer (AltGr+Shift)? That's worse than Slovenian.

@jernej__s @zhenech @mcc

It's THE WORST. Any C-family language is basically a guaranteed RSI, not to speak of TeX and LaTeX.

@mcc I'm from Ukraine. I have 3 keyboards and all have $.
C# my language of choice has $ symbol in syntax and I'm only now had a thought that it may have been not like that.

@mcc The dollar sign ($) is, unfortunately, universal on keyboards. The pound sign (£) is also present on UK keyboards, but the UK Mac layout puts it in place of the hash sign (# ), relegating hash to Option+3
I first regularly used it in ZX Spectrum BASIC, where *nothing* is convenient to type. And there it is pronounced “string” (as in the variable x$ is pronounced “X string”), and has nothing to do with currency.

@mcc 1. Yes (Shift-4). 2 N/A. 3 No (but I learned BASIC at about 9; others probably have less exposure). On the other hand, I'm not actually sure how to get a € symbol typed on mine (Acer Aspire 3 14: no idea; Perixx (don't ask): no idea; Rgo (don't ask): apparently both $ and € appear on Shift-4; I'm not sure which is which. But I'm in the UK, which is a "special case".

@usernameswift@labyrinth.zone @mcc@mastodon.social @4censord@unfug.social what keyboard do you use? French (Canada)'s been doing the job for me and it has ¢ on AltGr+4

@oblomov @zhenech @mcc That's when you (if you're on Windows) fire up KLC and place the characters on more accessible combinations :)

@jernej__s @zhenech @mcc I just changed my keyboard layout to US International with dead keys. I did play around a bit with KLC but for other things

@jernej__s @oblomov @zhenech @mcc I am Italian and I have not been a programmer for at least 20 years anymore, but ALT+123 and ALT +125 will be my memories forever.