[aneisf]

You can do this in C# (and presumably other languages). I've seen people using Greek symbols in mathy code before. It's kind of fun.

[unfunco]

It's fun once. It's impractical for someone editing the code later though, I don't want to have to look up the unicode character each time I want to remember it, and I don't want to have to copy and paste it either, it's better to stick with the characters available on a keyboard.

[Karunamon]

OS X handles some of this by assigning mnemonics to keyboard keys with the meta key (on mac keyboards, Option, or the "windows" key on the standard layout) held down.

For instance, the registered trademark symbol ® is just option+r. ∑ is option-w. Diacritics are two-stroke combinations, to get é, you'd type option-e, which puts the ´ on the screen, and then type the e to complete the character.

Some of them definitely make more sense than others. ∑ looks like a sideways 'W", the trademark symbol is just a circled r, and the diacritic marks fit the character you'd commonly associate them with. (Guess what letter you hit to get ¨ over a letter?)

Beats copy/pasting out of character map, anyways!

[veemjeem]

I guess it depends what country you're currently in. I know some chinese developers would prefer some chinese characters because it happens to be the ones available on their keyboard.

[mturmon]

I have to agree. I had a love affair with unicode put directly in LaTeX markup (delta, integral signs, element-of, etc...) and it was very fun at first. Then I had to send the paper to a collaborator while writing a follow-up article together. I ended up removing all the unicode, and in subsequent work I didn't do it any more.

[hatred]

I won't mind it if the original author also has a comment signifying what unicode character the variable refers to. This will reduce some pain though not all of it.

[leoc]

Bluntly, though, that's a deficiency in your OS user interface or text editor.

[abruzzi]

I'm stuck doing most of my work in php, so this is kind of neat. (I also like that the example in the text resurrects the famous 30 year old dogcow joke.)