[RFC] Do not use ^ as representation for exponentiation

[Jose E. Marchesi]

> Me again,
>
> On Sat, Jan 17, 2026, 06:59 Mohammad-Reza Nabipoor <mnabipoor@gnu.org>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 17, 2026 at 03:19:36PM +0100, Jose E. Marchesi wrote:
>> >
>> > I propose to stop supporting `^' as an alternative represetnation of
>> > "**" and UP.
>>
>>
>> 100%. These are in RR (p. 132): ↑, **, UP.
>>
>> And ^ is (visually) way closer to AND; in RR, page 131:
>>
>>   op <⃒ ^, &, and >⃒ = (bool a, b) bool: (a | b | false);
>>
>> By visually, I mean when you look at the printed RR, not this email.
>>
>
> I agree with the above.
>
> I believe that, in its code examples, the RR uses ^ for AND and its
> vertical mirror image for OR (which is not the caron). Unfortunately the
> short form of OR, while extant in Unicode, doesn't AFAIK have a compose key
> equivalent let alone appear on any keyboard I have ever seen. It also looks
> a lot like a lower case v. Has anyone ever been tempted to define lower
> case v as an operator?
>
> I think I have mentioned this before but because of all of the above I
> believe there is an argument to be made for just using AND and OR.

We have been doing just that almost since the beginning: we on't use &
for representing AND.

> Related, there is also that proposed extension of ANDIF for short-circuited
> AND as well as ORIF for short-circuited OR, those not being operators AFAIK
> so as to avoid collateral evaluation of their arguments.

We support andth and orel as pseudo-operators.