[oxinabox]

no, the comment is the included REPL has it, and that most editor plug-ins (of which they exist for vim, emacs, sublime, Atom, VS-Code) intended for julia, add the same unicode shortcuts, as well as the usual syntax highlighting, keyword completion etc.

If you don't want to use the, but do want to enter unicode, then you can do it the normal way. But I feel like the fact that you want to enter unicode but don't want to install a plugin to make it easier is pretty weird. I guess it could come up if editting someone elses code. As a general rule most libraries (including the standard libary) make very limitted use of unicode in their APIs, so you don't have to use unicode to work with the library.

I would go so far as to say if a library requires you to use unicode you should open an issue, and get them to add a ascii alias for that function. (julia standard library had just such an issue opened a few versions ago about the compose operator ∘ and not we have a `compose` function to match).

I would also say internally most packages make very limitted use of unicode also. Even with the plugins it is still a bit annoying to type. Plus often it would be a less meaningful variable name. E.g. why say: θ, when you could be saying `departing_assent_angle` or something else that conveys context specific meaning. Its nice to have the option for when it is clear, but I think pleasingly people only use it in moderation.