I prefer the dedicated minus (U+2212) over the hyphen-minus (U+002d) for mathematical use because they look different in most font faces.
Are there cases where the dedicated hyphen (U+2010) is preferred over the hyphen-minus?
Are there cases where the dedicated hyphen (U+2010) is preferred over the hyphen-minus?
As far as appearance goes, almost all fonts I've looked at make U+2010 identical to U+002D (i.e., they don't put any 'minus' into the 'hyphen-minus'), but a few make U+2010 a smidgeon shorter.
It looks much better though and more visible: −1 vs -1. I wish hyphen was a separate symbol from the ascii start, or that monospace fonts didn't tend to shorten "-" cause it makes little sense in monospace anyway.
— In the context of automatic text processing, it unambiguously indicates the function of a hyphen, as opposed to a minus
— Fonts can choose to make the hyphen-minus a bit wider than a regular hyphen, to accommodate the usage as a minus sign. In that case, U+2010 would be typographically more appropriate for a hyphen, similar to how U+2212 usually is typographically more appropriate for a minus sign.