Re: Hexadecimal digits

From: Luke-Jr (luke@dashjr.org)
Date: Fri Jun 04 2010 - 12:56:48 CDT

  • Next message: Kenneth Whistler: "Re: Hexadecimal digits"

    On Friday 04 June 2010 12:43:33 pm Kenneth Whistler wrote:
    > And that is why prefixes such as "0x" were invented, so as
    > to disambiguate explicitly in contexts where syntax or
    > explicit type do not. Ordinary language usage wouldn't ordinarily
    > countenance this kind of ambiguity anyway -- it is a completely
    > artificial example.

    The whole point is to get the tonal/hexadecimal number system adopted for
    ordinary everyday use. This kind of ambiguity is an obstacle.

    > > Just two examples I can think of offhand that make a-f insufficient.
    >
    > ASCII a-f to express hexadecimal digits are standard in every
    > significant programming language syntax, as well as for numeric
    > character references that are used ubiquitously now to refer to
    > characters in HTML and XML. So I'd say they are probably
    > sufficient for some millions of programmers and some hundreds of
    > millions of web users.

    But again, I'm not talking about programming. My four year old can grasp tonal
    just as well as she could decimal had I been teaching that. Now if I were
    using the a-f notation, she would be (reasonably) confused as to why *some*
    numbers are unique, but *other* numbers are also letters.



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