Occasionally using emojis in identifiers when it is helpful

[CharlieJV]

https://basicanywheremachine-news.blogsp...fiers.html

[CharlieJV]

https://basicanywheremachine-news.blogsp...fiers.html

For folk with cognitive challenges (maybe some folk without), Unicode characters can also be used in identifiers as quick visual cues to help finding / distinguishing. For example, it could be useful to make line labels stand out:

Code: (Select All)

...

Gosub ➢Subroutine
...
➢Subroutine:
...
Return

[TerryRitchie]

Let's hope that never gets incorporated into QB64. I can't stand them in text messages. In my code? No thank you.

[CharlieJV]

Let's hope that never gets incorporated into QB64. I can't stand them in text messages. In my code? No thank you.

That's a disappointing reply considering my intent/hope.

I was only bringing this up for the ice cube's chance in hell possibility that maybe some soul here might be interested in discussing the usefulness of these things for folk with cognitive disabilities and for colour-blind folk (or anybody who might not be well-served by syntax colouring.)

If one doesn't suffer from these things and is not interested in discussions on how to help folk with these challenges, I wouldn't expect that person to have the least bit of interest in this.

It is the kind of stuff that is immensely helpful to me (the unicode characters in particular; emojis are too loud).  I guess the positive spin:  so nice to know that you and I will never team up on any code, since things that can help me out are detrimental to you.  Them's the breaks.

[TerryRitchie]

Well I didn't mean to strike a nerve. I simply don't see how pictorials can in any way be helpful in source code. You can already comment code and surround/highlight those important areas of code that need to stand out. I do it heavily in my code all the time.

[mnrvovrfc]

Let's hope that never gets incorporated into QB64. I can't stand them in text messages. In my code? No thank you.

This was said decisively enough for me.

BTW I caught someone else in another forum using your signature.

That's a disappointing reply considering my intent/hope.

Don't look at things at a negative aspect. QB64(PE) doesn't have certain abilities that BASIC Anywhere Machine and QBJS have, as you and dbox keep demonstrating. An user could choose one or the other depending on his/her needs.

I admit, syntax coloring was something I would have still resisted today, although it could be helpful. It's because almost all editors that do it could go overboard with someone else's settings. One would then have to make adjustments to configuration when he/she would rather write source code! When I first saw syntax coloring in Turbo C++ way back in the day, I felt my copy of Turbo Pascal v6 was rather old. My copy was actually only a couple of years off. But it's because I barely made any use of it and it was my fault.

Another thing about editors these days is that dumbass highlight of the "current" line the edit cursor is on. That drives me nuts! At least the QB64 IDE has an option to disable it, but with editors like Kate it's not that easy, must take the trouble with configuration to set it the same as the general background color. (facepalm)

[CharlieJV]

Well I didn't mean to strike a nerve. I simply don't see how pictorials can in any way be helpful in source code. You can already comment code and surround/highlight those important areas of code that need to stand out. I do it heavily in my code all the time.

You've got to put yourself in the mindset of a person who:

• suffers from sensory overload 24x7
  
• everything, absolutely everything and every detail, is interesting ( a shiny object grabbing attention)
  
• hyperlinked thought processing, all of the time: everything is connected to everything else, instantly; so always a web of intertwingled (intertwined and interconnected) things
  

Comments are necessary at times, but every character in the program and every word is grabbing attention, grabbing focus.

It is like many people talking to me at the same time, and I desperately need all of them to shut up because I'm trying to process one particular thing, and trying to ignore all of the things connected to that one thing that instantly pop up in my head and have nothing to do with the program.

So short and concise things one-character things that help me find what I'm looking for and/or identify what I'm looking at, these are extremely helpful.

Way more helpful than comments.  Because it takes too long to read, because every word is connected to an overwhelming web of intertwingled things that word makes me think of.

Graphic symbols most often don't have any meaning to me (I pretty much draw a blank, which is kind of a nice break).  But if I know that symbol is associated with, say, a label for a line identifier, then I've got nothing else in my head and it becomes the anchor point for the GOSUB before it and the IF before that.

I don't know how to explain it any better.  I'm the one with the disability, not the one who has studied cognitive psychology.

[CharlieJV]

Let's hope that never gets incorporated into QB64. I can't stand them in text messages. In my code? No thank you.

This was said decisively enough for me.

BTW I caught someone else in another forum using your signature.

That's a disappointing reply considering my intent/hope.

Don't look at things at a negative aspect. QB64(PE) doesn't have certain abilities that BASIC Anywhere Machine and QBJS have, as you and dbox keep demonstrating. An user could choose one or the other depending on his/her needs.

I admit, syntax coloring was something I would have still resisted today, although it could be helpful. It's because almost all editors that do it could go overboard with someone else's settings. One would then have to make adjustments to configuration when he/she would rather write source code! When I first saw syntax coloring in Turbo C++ way back in the day, I felt my copy of Turbo Pascal v6 was rather old. My copy was actually only a couple of years off. But it's because I barely made any use of it and it was my fault.

Another thing about editors these days is that dumbass highlight of the "current" line the edit cursor is on. That drives me nuts! At least the QB64 IDE has an option to disable it, but with editors like Kate it's not that easy, must take the trouble with configuration to set it the same as the general background color. (facepalm)

The only thing BASIC Anywhere Machine in any of this: it allows me to try things out and see how it helps me.

I was hoping this thread would not be about QB64pe or BASIC Anywhere Machine, but would be about discussing things that can be done in general to accommodate folk with disabilities.

Do I ever regret thinking folk here might have some useful insights or any curiosity about it.  EFF it.

[TerryRitchie]

Calm down Charlie. I never meant to slight you or anyone with a disability. Your original post was not clear to me as to its intent. I have Autism, my son does too, I have another son with cerebral palsy and yet another with Downs Syndrome. I understand disability, believe me. Having autism I tend to resist major change and seeing a suggestion about placing pictorials in source code pushed by "oh no" button, that''s all.

[CharlieJV]

Calm down Charlie. I never meant to slight you or anyone with a disability. Your original post was not clear to me as to its intent. I have Autism, my son does too, I have another son with cerebral palsy and yet another with Downs Syndrome. I understand disability, believe me. Having autism I tend to resist major change and seeing a suggestion about placing pictorials in source code pushed by "oh no" button, that''s all.

Hey, I was upset because it is yet another failure for me to parse what's in my head and coherently communicate what I want to communicate.  A lifetime of struggle that is only getting worse.

"Eff" on its own would warrant a "calm down."  That would be me indicating frustration.

"Eff it", that is what I say or write to lightning-fast get from agitated/frustrated to zen.  (Reminds me of the "Eff it" list.  I happily get to cross a whole bunch of them off everyday, while I don't get to cross off things on the bucket list very often.)

Instant zen because they "Eff it" are the words of surrender to what is.  It is a recognition that I am again stubbornly struggling against my greatest weakness instead of playing to my strengths, so I need to give it a rest.  One will not get a bean plant out of a tomato seed.  Better for me to be a spectator than a participant, and throw a "+1" when I find something worth applauding.