On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 10:03:35AM +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > > and the former is virtually indistinguishable from 00012, O0012, or > > many other combinations that someone might accidentally type (or > > intentionally type, having to do this in dozens of other programming > > languages). > > Only if you type the letter in uppercase. The lower-case ‘o’ is much > easier to distinguish.
It is easier, but I dispute that it is much easier. > Whether or not you find ‘0o012’ easily distinguishable as a non-decimal > notation, it's undoubtedly easier to distinguish than ‘012’. 012 has meant decimal 10 in octal to me for so long, from its use in MANY other programming languages, that I disagree completely. > > I can see how 012 can be confusing to new programmers, but at least > > it's legible, and the great thing about humans is that they can be > > taught (usually). I for one think this change is completely misguided. > > These human programmers, whether newbies or long-experienced, also deal > with decimal numbers every day, many of which are presented as a > sequence of digits with leading zeros — and we continue to think of them > as decimal numbers regardless. Having the language syntax opposed to > that is ...consistent with virtually every other popular programming language. -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D
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