On the other hand, if it were actually the case that people kept turning on the wipers instead of signaling their turns, it would be a sign that we should figure out how to make these two different operations not use symmetrical levers, and that it would be okay to change people's expectations because those expectations weren't very firm.

In aircraft, where it matters a whole lot more that you don't confuse the various levers, the handle of the landing gear lever is shaped like a little wheel and the handle of the flaps lever is shaped like a little wing edge: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/a/22689

Typing "and"/"bitand" seems like the same sort of thing. It's a minor change, but it prevents errors.

Wish it was consistent, though.

'josefx is right in saying[0] these are still primarily hacks around encoding issues.

  | meaning | what is | what should have been |
  |---------+---------+-----------------------|
  | &&      | and     | and                   |
  | &=      | and_eq  | bitand_eq             |
  | &       | bitand  | bitand                |
  | |       | bitor   | bitor                 |
  | ~       | compl   | bitcompl              |
  | !       | not     | not                   |
  | !=      | not_eq  | not_eq                |
  | ||      | or      | or                    |
  | |=      | or_eq   | bitor_eq              |
  | ^       | xor     | bitxor                |
  | ^=      | xor_eq  | bitxor_eq             |

--

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27928276

No it's because this way your left hand only deals with blinker, and your right one wih the gear shift. Separation of concerns. It's reversed in the UK of course.

The gear stick may be on the driver's left in the UK, but the indicator and windscreen wiper/wash stalks do not necessarily follow.

All my cars for the last ~15-20 years have had the indicator stalk on the left (i.e. same side as the gear stick), and the windscreen wiper/wash controls on the right, but I suspect that this might be a manufacturer-specific convention.

A quick bit of googled internet wisdom suggest Japanese brands tend to the right, European brands tend to the left, and EU standardisation has settled on left.

Strictly speaking, I would expect the indicator to be activated prior to commencing a manoeuvre, so would expect the two actions to not overlap.

Also - super old reference:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=768151

:)

Fyi it does in fact change depending on the car manufacturer.

> ... which, frankly, is a very good reason. Don't needlessly change something people are used to.

Unless this reason is causing bugs and security issues.