The situation is very different on an iPad. I don't think this argument is a 
good enough reason either. It will differ based on locale, accessibility 
technology, device, personal key shortcuts, etc. 

l8r
Sean 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 21, 2016, at 6:52 PM, Brandon Knope via swift-evolution 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> You're going to be holding shift for the parens anyways so it might be easier 
> to type instead of not pressing and then pressing shift
> 
> Brandon 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Jun 21, 2016, at 7:47 PM, Andrey Fidrya <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> I think that introducing another escape character is not a good idea.
>> \() is consistent with \r \n etc.
>> 
>> And I'm not sure if $ is easier to type. '\' is a single keypress and is 
>> located
>> near Backspace & Enter.
>> 
>> $ is SHIFT+4 and is harder to type without looking at the keyboard.
>> 
>> Andrey
>> 
>> 
>>> On 22 Jun 2016, at 02:25, Brandon Knope via swift-evolution 
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> How can it be unpersuasive? I can *show* you that keys that are easier to 
>>> type/reach exist for a large majority of user’s.
>>> 
>>> I am not saying it is a good idea or not to replace \, but to pretend that 
>>> there isn’t an inconvenience there is unfair when every other part of the 
>>> language is put under a magnifying glass for the sake of grammar, newbie 
>>> friendliness, or this or that, etc...
>>> 
>>> This is measurable…it just depends on whether it bothers people or not 
>>> enough. Most other things are based on opinion, but this *can* be based on 
>>> numbers and usability.
>>> This is something used by everyone. The usability cost is there and it is 
>>> real. Just because “well it is easy for me to type” does not mean that it 
>>> is ideal. It also doesn’t mean that the current choice is the wrong choice 
>>> either. But it still is important to discuss while we can.
>>> 
>>> And yes a keyboard IS only so big, but the range to that bigness can be 
>>> pretty… big.
>>> 
>>> Also, $ is not the only option. There are still far easier keys to type 
>>> than \.
>>> 
>>> Brandon
>>> 
>>>> On Jun 21, 2016, at 7:15 PM, Xiaodi Wu <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 6:08 PM, Brandon Knope via swift-evolution 
>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> Actually… we can go pretty scientific on this sort of thing and heat map 
>>>>> keyboard usage to get a better picture of how “usable” this is.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I pasted a file that contains seven \’s in it and heat mapped it at 
>>>>> https://www.patrick-wied.at/projects/heatmap-keyboard/
>>>>> 
>>>>> Even *with* several \’s throughout my source file the majority of my key 
>>>>> presses take place much closer to the $ key than the \ key.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think we can all argue about what is clearer or not, but I think for 
>>>>> the majority of us, the \ key is quite inconvenient compared to the keys 
>>>>> around where we type the most.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I also ran several of iOS 10’s sample code through the heat map and 
>>>>> continue to get pretty similar results: the \ is much further from the 
>>>>> hottest part of the keyboard than the ones closer to where your hand 
>>>>> usually rests.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Maybe this is flawed, but I think it is hard to argue that the \ is easy 
>>>>> to type when there are far more usable alternatives.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm rather unpersuaded by this line of argument. The keyboard is only so 
>>>> big; it's a stretch to say that any key is less than absolutely usable. 
>>>> Moreover, \ is next the delete key, which I presume you use frequently and 
>>>> find no difficulty in reaching.
>>>> 
>>>> You know what *is* unusable though? Try finding the $ key on an 
>>>> international keyboard.
>>>>  
>>>>> Brandon
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Jun 21, 2016, at 6:10 PM, Daniel Resnick via swift-evolution 
>>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I also disagree for the same reasons that Gwynne and Brent mentioned: I 
>>>>>> find '\(...)' easy to read, fine to type, and consistent with other 
>>>>>> string escaping syntax.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via swift-evolution 
>>>>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>>> > I find that typing \(var) is very disruptive to my typing flow. The 
>>>>>>> > more I code in Swift, the more I like it, but every time I'm coding 
>>>>>>> > and then have to hiccup while typing \ then ( causes me to be 
>>>>>>> > annoyed. I know, it's minor, but it isn't a key combination that 
>>>>>>> > flows quickly.
>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>> > I would much rather have $() or perhaps ${} (like Groovy lang) or 
>>>>>>> > perhaps @() to go along with other uses of @ throughout the language.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Even though I'm used to Perl's and Ruby's interpolation syntaxes, I 
>>>>>>> immediately liked `\(…)`. It's parsimonious: Rather than taking a third 
>>>>>>> character (besides \ and ") to mean something special in a string 
>>>>>>> literal, it reuses one of the existing ones. There's no need to escape 
>>>>>>> a character you wouldn't otherwise have to touch, or to think of 
>>>>>>> another character as "magical" in a string. It fits nicely with the 
>>>>>>> rest of the syntax, with `\` indicating a special construct and then 
>>>>>>> `()` delimiting an expression, just as they do elsewhere in the 
>>>>>>> language. It's an elegant solution to a problem traditionally solved 
>>>>>>> inelegantly. It's very Swifty in that way.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> > A shifted key, like $ or @, followed by another shifted key like (, 
>>>>>>> > allows for a much faster flow and they are much closer to the home 
>>>>>>> > keys than \ which is nearly as far from home keys as possible (and 
>>>>>>> > awkward).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I don't have any trouble typing it personally. If you find yourself 
>>>>>>> accidentally typing `\9` or `|(`, we could probably offer an error for 
>>>>>>> the former or warning for the latter with a fix-it. But if you're 
>>>>>>> complaining that it takes a tiny fraction of a second longer to type 
>>>>>>> than `$(` would, then honestly, I just can't bring myself to care. 
>>>>>>> Swift optimizes for code reading. If we wanted to optimize for code 
>>>>>>> typing instead, we'd have a very different style.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Brent Royal-Gordon
>>>>>>> Architechies
>>>>>>> 
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>>>>>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
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