At long last, the future is here: we can now communicate using combinations of pictograms and ideograms—emojis, if you will—finally unshackling ourselves from the oppressive burden of words. Imagine avoiding the entire English language altogether, all in a fully standardised way. Thanks, Unicode!
Unicode: Saving Us from Literacy
The Unicode Consortium, that unsung international non-profit hero of textual governance, continues its noble mission of cramming even more tiny cartoon glyphs into our devices. From 🪿 to 🛞 and 🤌, our keyboards are practically bursting at the seams with meaning.
Thousands of emojis. Endless possibilities. Who needs nuance when you have 🔥💯💀?
C++ Joins the Party 🎉
Meanwhile, in the ancient land of C++, a language that proudly resists change like a grizzled old wizard, something miraculous has happened: UTF-8 is now allowed in source files. That's right. Emojis. In. Code.
The language that brought us dangling pointers and template metaprogramming now also brings you the ability to write 👌 instead of return 0;. Progress.
Introducing: Emoji Keywords in C++ 😎
So naturally, I did what any modern developer would do: I built a C++ header mapping emojis to C++ keywords, available now via SquarePine. Because if you’re going to suffer through compile times and type deduction hell, you might as well do it with a smiley face.
Why write if constexpr when you could write 🤔🧱? Why settle for while (true) when you could embrace the endless joy of 🔁♾️?
Productivity Gains: Immeasurable 🧠⚡
This project isn’t just a novelty - it’s a revelation. Writing less code makes you a better developer, right? That’s what the blogs say. With emoji-based code, you’ll hit peak minimalism. You might even impress your manager, who’s already confused enough by the lack of semicolons in Python.
After all, isn’t this what we’ve all been dreaming of? Less code. More 🐍. Total detachment from semantic clarity. Real productivity.
Find the code here: https://gitlab.com/squarepine/cppemojimapper/-/blob/master/squarepine_EmojiMapper.h