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When I'm next in front of that PC I will give it a go! 
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It seems to mostly lead to trouble. For example, the dreaded Greek question mark[^], incomprehensible symbols being used as identifiers, unrendered boxes all over the place, and sometimes it looks like an operator but it counts as a whitespace[^].
Perhaps worst of all, they can't be keyed in easily. No, I'm not going to memorize a list of alt codes. Copy paste works, but it's annoying, especially if there are several different characters in use.
To be more precise, I actually don't mean to ban unicode (makes a catchy title though), but "problematic characters". If it's not on US keyboard (not even US International, no diacritics and such), it can't be in the code. Except string constants, because you may need them.
"But what about my math symbols and Greek letters??" NO! it's not a paper written in LaTeX, it's plaintext.
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On a more serious note: Using alphabetical characters (plus the usual bit of +-[]{};.->()-stuff) is (at least where I work) considered Standard. Anything else ist just not gonna get into a production System, end of the Story.
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Are there no advantages to being able to represent recognised constants by the Greek letters that usually signify them then? In any case, it will always be the case that making something illegal doesn't mean for a second that it stops happening!
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You can just write out their names. That used to be how it had to be done, and it still is how it is done most of the time.
It's still Math.PI, not Math.π
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harold aptroot wrote: It seems to mostly lead to trouble. For example, the dreaded Greek question mark[^], incomprehensible symbols being used as identifiers, unrendered boxes all over the place, and sometimes it looks like an operator but it counts as a whitespace[^].
Don't try to solve a problem that doesn't exists in the first place Both links are quite entertaining but how could it really happen? How are you going to replace anything in your friend's code without anyone knowing it? Even if you don't use pull requests then even subversion sports blame...
And if they leave their computer unlocked while they leave then it is still no different that old good flip screen orientation prank 
--
"My software never has bugs. It just develops random features."
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It also happens accidentally, for example when copying code from the internet or a pdf. Especially minus signs like to get corrupted into some sort of weird dash.
The Greek question mark, ok, that's mostly a joke.
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I would agree. There appears to be little upside to allowing Unicode outside string literals, and lots of downside.
- Until all operating systems universally display all Unicode glyphs, you run the risk of not even being able to read the code.
- Until all compilers universally support Unicode tokens, your code may mean completely different things to different compilers. In the best case, the code won't compile. In the worst case, it will compile and give totally bogus results.
- A programmer who uses non-Latin tokens in their code may make things easier for him/herself, but much more difficult for anyone else who reads his/her code. This is an important consideration in these days of open source and international development teams.
I would rather read comments, etc. in poor English than attempt to puzzle out comments written in a mish-mash of perfect Chinese, English, Japanese, Russian, Urdu, etc.
I also note that if you have language-dependent string literals in your code, you should provide a localized set of strings for each supported locale. Many Standard-compliant (and other) methods exist for doing this.
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Burn the witch![^]
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Life would be easier if we could mark people as spam (or abusive).
What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?
The metaphorical solid rear-end expulsions have impacted the metaphorical motorized bladed rotating air movement mechanism.
Do questions with multiple question marks annoy you???
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Aren't you the slightest bity curious about how Follixin works (and how it tastes)? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Just marked my mate[^], but do not feel my life got easier...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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Do that all the time. It's the lack of an effective filter which steers them away from you into some far flung place from which they cannot bother you that's the problem!
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Marking them is easy; getting them to avoid us is hard...
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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■ On the street you can reply to a greeting with "sorry busy, can't stop.", so long as you don't slow down as you're saying it.
■ On the phone, you can set a silent wav as the ring-tone for when they call.
■ On the right websites, you can. For the wrong ones, you just write a browser extension.
Not talking to people is something I find trivial. It's the talking bit I find more of a challenge.  
"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life." - John Lennon
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At birth!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.1 new web site.
I know the voices in my head are not real but damn they come up with some good ideas!
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Read several articles this year about the pros/cons of commenting your code. I've been up since 0400 working on code. With no comments.. or very limited comments. I'm not talking about what the code is doing, but I sure as hell would like to know why....
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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If the code is written with some disciplined architecture and perhaps sticks to the single responsibility principle, then a lot of commenting may not be needed. Still, even the best code only shows only what is being done, but not the intention behind it.
At work I have a real big uncommented mess of dozens of data tables, stored procedures with (half of) the application logic and on each data table at least seven or more triggers to do the second half of the application logic. The stored procedures and triggers are usually a few thousand lines long, try to do everything at once in the good old spaghetti style and are, of course, not commented in any useful way. Absolutely undebuggable and unmaintainable. How I would like to shake the idiot's neck who came up with this, but he is, as always, long gone and creates another such mess elswhere.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Comments should enhance your code: I use XML commenting (to pass to intellisense) and a small amount of relevant commenting when things get complicated. But generally, most of my methods don't get a comment in the code - I keep them small so that it's pretty much unnecessary as they are self documenting.
What bugs me is:
A) Irrelevant comments: particularly those that repeat what the code is doing rather than explaining why it's doing it.
B) Wrong comments. Hate them. If you change the damn code, change the damn comments you lazy SOB! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Griff - I agree, keep the comments current. As far as relevancy, I find myself guilty from time to time of this error. Good comments are like code, they must be maintained. Maintaining irrelevant comments is silly.
I'm mainly griping about high level comments, the crap that explains a particular process and why it's arranged in this fashion. I've been working on this product for 2 years, plus a previous one, so I know WHY things are done this way. But if we ever get hit by a truck, customer is in trouble.
Gripe #2 - not using complete names... FileNm for FileName? really?
Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...
"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
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I'd agree - but that's what the <remarks> section of the XML comments is there for!
I'm guilty of using "short names" for very temporary local variables:
frmInputBox ib = new frmInputBox("Please enter the user name");
if (ib.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
string userName = ib.Value;
...
}And such like.
But avoid "txtspk" variable names the rest of the time!
And while we're on the subject of names...I hate it when people use VS default names for controls...5 seconds extra for you to call it "tbUserName" instead of "textBox14", and hours of me swapping to design view to get a clue what holds what...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: .I hate it when people use VS default names for controls...5 seconds extra for you to call it "tbUserName" instead of "textBox14"
What a relief - I thought I was some sort of wacko (nutter, across the water) that wanted the name of the control to tell me what it does: and then enjoying how it passes on the events and stuff automatically.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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OriginalGriff wrote: I hate it when people use VS default names for controls...5 seconds extra for you to call it "tbUserName" instead of "textBox14", and hours of me swapping to design view to get a clue what holds what...
Programmers who use VS default names should be defenestrated
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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