> Let's hope they won't ever become a mainstream part of programming languages.
knowing a few people in this world, I am sure that this will certainly happen way before you can have variables named α, β, γ
knowing a few people in this world, I am sure that this will certainly happen way before you can have variables named α, β, γ
I've used θ in code dealing with angles before.
On OS X, and I assume others, you can add items to be automatically replaced, so something like "!t" could become a unicode theta if you want.
For an even more extreme version, look at Perl6's atomic operators: https://docs.perl6.org/language/unicode_ascii#Atomic_operato... (or any other operators on this page for that matter).
IMO, it's not a "bad idea". Code is meant to be read, not written. If it renders the code more readable, then that's a win. But obviously, whether those symbols actually make the code more readable is debatable.
In general, it would be rather silly to use greek letters for variable names. Yet sometimes, they tend to make numerical code much more readable when you are copying a mathematical formula verbatim.
Compare using "πθ" versus "M_PI*theta" several times on the same formula, for example.
def <emoji>
puts "helloworld"
end
> helloworld