[davorb]

I use emacs and just press the dot button to access an additional layer on my keyboard with the special characters. The APL characters are surprisingly easy to learn and in my experience superior to the ASCII based ones used by J et al.

I think the closest thing I can compare them to, would be using musical or mathematical notation vs trying to describe the same things with text. Using notation has a slight learning curve, but is superior in day-to-day usage.