Well, now I can at least understand what it feels like to look at Lisp and hate all the parentheses, so I'm trying to temper my immediate repulsion a little. But no, absolutely not. I would code a pre-commit hook to reject these on the first attempt, and send you your P45 on the second, sorry.
I understand your frustration looking at symbols which may not be straightforward without a certain background or a glossary of terms. However, do you realize anyone outside the UK similarly likely would need to look up what a P45 form is? It's like a USian saying "pink slip" rather than any Anglophone just saying "termination papers". We all like our own shorthand symbols and tend toward discomfort when we're the out group.
That comment was obvious hyperbole on an internet message board, not production code, and even then it's a terrible analogy because I actually typed it, I didn't use some inscrutable emoji that you then had to cut and paste. Also the idea that "people in the know" write code like this is absurd - I've worked with mathematicians for more than a decade in languages that support unicode names, and it would never occur to any of them to do idiotic stuff like this. This is terrible practice and always will be.
I understand your opinion and I won't argue with the merits. I can say, though, that your experience and point of view inform your opinion and may not be universal. I can imagine the APL folks who look at Julia would be fine with it.
