While most of the article talks about code, the author mentions underscores being ambiguous in the context of underlined fonts. (I don't even think my text editor [for code] supports underlined fonts.)
He also mentions only using shift once or twice per sentence when writing prose.
So it would seem that the author is just hating on _ in all contexts. Which is kind of silly. (Though I'll admit, the point of it being improperly handled with underlined fonts is certainly a valid complaint.)
I can see where that would be ambiguous. I think he mentioned using shift once or twice per sentence as a baseline for comparing how often we should have to use the shift key when coding. As for the underlining issue, the other reply already mentioned that many editors will underline code.
Come to think of it, I do know some editors that support HTML rendering inside comment blocks.
How would you use it for coding, though? Unless you stripped it before the compile phase I would think any formatting in a rich-text format would choke up almost any interpreter or compiler.
It doesn't need to be rich text. It can just be the way the editor does syntax highlighting. Say, for example, underline all function names. The compiler won't know anything about this style and will therefor not choke on it.
>While most of the article talks about code, the author mentions underscores being ambiguous in the context of underlined fonts. (I don't even think my text editor [for code] supports underlined fonts.)
Lot's of editors do. In Eclipse, for one, it's common to see function names and such shown as hyperlinks when you click on them (with underlines), which makes their definition open (like a function call is "linked" to the function definition).
While most of the article talks about code, the author mentions underscores being ambiguous in the context of underlined fonts. (I don't even think my text editor [for code] supports underlined fonts.)
He also mentions only using shift once or twice per sentence when writing prose.
So it would seem that the author is just hating on _ in all contexts. Which is kind of silly. (Though I'll admit, the point of it being improperly handled with underlined fonts is certainly a valid complaint.)