Hex

[Mark S. Miller]

At 11:41 AM 12/5/98 , Chip Morningstar wrote:
>... one of the design
>heuristics for E is, "when faced with a choice between elegant-and-more-
>ideal-but-a-little-alien on the one hand and imperfect-but-workable-and-
>very-familiar on the other hand, pick the latter". Use this heuristic here.

[+] Well put.

At 12:50 PM 12/5/98 , Ka-Ping Yee wrote:
>[-] The 0- and 0x- convention is too universal to ignore.  ...  If
>you have learned almost any language before E ... Java, C++, Python, Perl) 
>you already know this convention.

[+] Ok, I concede.
I purposely chose to target lightweight C-syntax-tradition programmers, not
non-programmers.  Since all C-tradition languages support 0-, I think this
overrides the issue of confusing the beginning programmer.  0x- and 0- are
back in, <radix>r- is out.  E isn't about arithmetic, so it doesn't need both.

Sorry if I seem wishy washy, but that's why I'm soliciting reactions -- so
y'all can help me make better decisions, and especially, help me avoid
doing something stupid.  Thanks.



>> Is this readability difference worth it?  Is there a better choice than
>> "_"?  Should numbers print this way too?  Opinions solicited.  Thanks.
>
>[#] Perl accepts numbers containing underscores; Tcl and Python do not.
>I am indifferent on this issue since i never use underscores in numbers,
>and this convention is neither useful nor surprising for me.  Certainly,
>if you do allow it, do not use any other character than the underscore.
>
>[-] Numbers should not print with underscores.  I know of no language
>and no printing function that ever does this.  If people must break
>up long numbers they can do it in some other way with commas.

[+] Underscores are read and ignored, but not printed.
I'm encouraged that Perl has already broken this ground for us.