[R] The "**" exponentiation operator.

[@vi@e@gross m@iii@g oii gm@ii@com]

^Richard**  :  LET'S NOT MUCK AROUND WITH R SYNTAX ANY MORE

Fully agreed Richard. There is a tax for trying to redeem for an old syn. Who really wants to pay the price given the disruption it can cause?

I do wonder if someone has already implemented a language that allows sub and superscripts in actual programming. Clearly exponentiation could be done if there was a way, as in LaTeX to specify the beginning of a superscripted region and the end of it.  Modern screens, within limits, could show such code using smaller fonts or other techniques such as colors albeit a deeply nested example would be a mess. And, I suspect some languages may not tolerate it well such as when python uses indentation for grouping.