"Bruno Medeiros" <brunodomedeiros+spam@com.gmail> wrote in message news:inla56$2uoq$1...@digitalmars.com... > On 03/04/2011 19:22, Nick Sabalausky wrote: >> "Lutger Blijdestijn"<lutger.blijdest...@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:in9t6a$21jb$1...@digitalmars.com... >>> >>> I don't understand why it is hackish if it's a pure library approach. >>> (it >>> is >>> right?) I find it actually rather nice that D can do this. This is not a >>> syntax change, octals are out of the language and the library now has an >>> octal template. Where's the problem? >>> >> >> Apperently, people want to get a warm fuzzy feeling from the existence of >> features they'll never use. >> >> Seriously, we don't have an 0t... for trinary. We don't have an 0q... for >> base-4 (quadrary?). We don't have any such syntax for any base other than >> 2, >> 10, and 16 (and previously 8). And how many people are bitching about >> those >> omissions? Nobody. But those omissions are *EVERY BIT* as inconsistent >> with >> decimal/hex/binary syntax as omitting octal is. >> >> But noooo, apperently we *need* 0o... for octal just simply for the sake >> of >> *it* existing, but not for any other base. So where the fuck is the >> consistency in the self-proclaimed "consistency" argument? And don't tell >> me >> "octal is more useful than trinary" because then you're implicitly >> admitting >> that the consistency argument is a load of crap, and you're jumping ship >> to >> the "usefulness" argument...which octal *still* looses. >> >> > > This is I think (possibly by far) the best argument with regards to this > issue on this thread, *and well worth remembering for the future*, for > similar arguments about consistency/orthogonality vs not. > It shows that the decision for the inclusion or not of this syntax should > be made on terms of usefulness (as in, would it be common enough to be > worthwhile including?), and not in terms of consistency, because this is > not a case where true consistency applies to give value to the decision. > Because indeed, the only truly, pedantically consistent behavior would be > to have no 0? syntax at all, or have one for almost every possible base. > (!) >
I want base PI literals :) Yum.