Re: a note on notations

[haahr@mv.us.adobe.com (Paul Haahr)]

Arnold raises a very good point:
> Early Bourne shells and the current ksh use <> for 'open for read and write'.
> Do y'all want to consider supporting that operation and perhaps use : for
> the return value of some code?

> It's mostly a cultural compatibility issue, and a very weak one at that.
> I just thought I'd point out the history...

i thought i'd raise this point for the list.  should es support <> for open
read/write?  (in a decade of unix hacking, i'd never seen that notation, by
the way.  and i'm they one who always says unix isn't that obscure.  sigh?)

if so, and my feeling is yes, because you can't do that right now and there's
no good reason why, then the <> which i absolutely hate anyway, has be changed.
can people suggest a better one, that doesn't take a syntax character?

Arnold's suggestion of : would bother me, if it has to be made a special
character, but i think i can get away with just making it a keyword.
(that is, like @, it would have to be surrounded by whitespace or special
characters.)  <> is almost always used with {} or $& following it, so
making it a keyword is probably ok.

would people miss the ability to type ``:'' as a standalone word?  (note that
things like kremvax:/etc/passwd would NOT need to be quoted)

i'd like responses on this one soon, since i had intended to cut a release for
the outside world real soon now.

thanks,
paul