van Vliet use of backquote (and backslash)

[jpl]

Hello All,

This thread is interesting and I am totally ill-equipped to comment on
the Vliet aspects.

That said, from a user perspective, the use of "e" in 10.0e3 is so
ubiquitous that any other denotations would be confusing.  So, seems
wasteful to use a precious "\" for that.

Regarding 4.7i3.2,  I have never seen it.  But I LOVE IT!  Crisp,
clean, concise, and without any visual clutter.

Thanks! /James



On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 5:14 AM chris hermansen <clhermansen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Jose and list,
>
> On Sat, Feb 7, 2026 at 3:51 PM Jose E. Marchesi <jemarch@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > Good evening all
>> >
>> > I noticed tonight while poring through van Vliet's transput code that he
>> > appropriates the backquote as "plus_i_times", as part of his defining sets
>> > of characters to be used in transput formatting conversion:
>> >
>> > CharBag {ℵ₀} radix10digit = STRINGTOBAG "0123456789",
>> >         {ℵ₀} radix_2digit = STRINGTOBAG "01",
>> >         {ℵ₀} radix_4digit = STRINGTOBAG "0123",
>> >         {ℵ₀} radix_8digit = STRINGTOBAG "01234567",
>> >         {ℵ₀} radix16digit = STRINGTOBAG "0123456789abcedf",
>> >         {ℵ₀} time_ten_to_the_power = STRINGTOBAG "\eE",
>> >         {ℵ₀} flipflop               = STRINGTOBAG (flip + flop),
>> >         {ℵ₀} plus_i_times           = STRINGTOBAG "`iI",
>> >         {ℵ₀} signspace              = STRINGTOBAG "+- ",
>> >         {ℵ₀} plusminus              = STRINGTOBAG "+-",
>> >         {ℵ₀} point                  = STRINGTOBAG string("."),
>> >         {ℵ₀} xylpkq                 = STRINGTOBAG "xylpkq";
>> >
>> > His CharBag type above is like a Java HashSet<Character> and the
>> > STRINGTOBAG operator converts a string to a CharBag instance.
>> >
>> > This is the only place it appears in the code but of course the name
>> > plus_i_times appears in a few places...
>> >
>> > I'm thinking that, given the earlier discussion about whether or not
>> > backquote could be usurped for some other use, maybe better to nip this one
>> > in the bud...
>>
>> At the end we are following Hansen's recommendation and using apostrophe
>> for the brief form of OF.
>>
>> If/when we support left to right selection, it will most certainly be
>> using the dot character, not the backquote.
>>
>> So the backquote is free... do we want to use it for plus_i_times?
>> Thats the question :)
>>
>> >
>> > The eagle-eyed reader who has yet to fall asleep reading this will also
>> > note that van Vliet has proposed using the backslash as an alternative for
>> > time_ten_to_the_power... which maybe also should be discouraged.
>>
>> I have wondered about that one as well.  At the moment backslash is also
>> free, but do we want to spend it on this?
>>
>> What are common representation for plus_i_times and
>> time_ten_to_the_power?  I mean generally.
>
>
> I haven't had a lot of luck with my "favourite" search engine as to finding new denotations for times ten to the power of nor plus i times.  But I did pick this out of the RR:
>
> Wherever (in the transput declarations) the representation ₁₀ (\, ⊥) [subscript 10, backslash, tack) occurs within a <bold>character-denotation</bold> or <bold>string-denotation</bold>, it is to be interpreted as the representation of the <bold>string-item</bold> (8.1.4.1.b) used to indicate "times ten to the power" (an alternative form {, if any.} of "times ten to the power", "plus i times") on external media. {Clearly, these representations have been chosen because of their similarity to those of the <bold>times-ten-to-the-power-symbol</bold> (9.4.1.b) and the <bold>plus-i-times-symbol</bold> (9.4.1.c), but, on media on which these characters are not available, other <bold>string-items</bold> must be chosen (and the <bold>letter-e-symbol</bold> and the <bold>letter-i-symbol are obvious candidates</bold>).}
>
>
> I have tried to be very careful above in using <bold>...</bold> to bracket formal grammar terms and I have used the Unicode characters I believe represent the graphical representations of "times ten to the power" and "plus i times".
>
> In my opinion, we should at least consider 10.0e3 and 4.7i3.2 as respective denotations, given the stated interest in avoiding characters not available without using the Compose key or other artifices required to select "non-keyboardable" Unicode characters.
>
> I dislike the idea of "wasting" \ for "times ten to the power" and ` for "plus i times" as neither character is especially evocative of the proposed meaning.  Moreover a casual reader would more likely be familiar with at least 10.0e3 as meaning "ten to the power of 3" and could probably intuit 4.7i3.2 as 4.7 + 3.2i if s/he knew anything about complex numbers.
>
> Put another way - if there is any customary use of backslash as "times ten to the power" and ` as "plus i times", I at least have yet to discover it.
> --
> Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com
>
> C'est ma façon de parler.