!standard 2.4.2(6) 20-03-22 AC95-00328/00 !class Amendment 20-03-22 !status received no action 20-03-22 !status received 20-01-10 !subject Extended number bases !summary !appendix From: Peter Hermann Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 10:37 AM A comment on this: >"Randy Brukardt" 2020-01-10, 05:14 >"'Ada-Comment List'" > ... >(We've all "seen the need" for some feature or other over the years that >didn't make the cut!) So was the fate of http://www.ada-auth.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/acs/ac-00070.txt?rev=1.1 on a tiny improvement of numberbase. It had been dropped in 2003. Moreover, in 2010, my minimal refinement of the core language had been diluted by Babylonian baloney (e.g. AI05-0226-1) and other off_road thoughts. But a few understood , e.g. >From: Tucker Taft Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010  7:54 AM >... not in the ivory towers of language lawyerism. >From: Martin Dowie   Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003  4:37 PM >... >This would be _very_ handy for things like digital maps systems and map >preparation facilities. >From: Martin Dowie   Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003  2:43 AM >... >Also, you'd still have the prepend the literal with "33#" or >whatever, so that should give a hint that special care and >checking is required. >I'd rather check that than some of the more convoluted >algorithms currently used! >From: Robert Dewar  Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010  8:35 AM >... it is trivial enough to add, a few minutes work >in the compiler nothing more, so I don't seriously object ... > >From: Robert Dewar Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010  9:23 AM >I am completely convinced we should NOT go beyond base 36... I confess and respect: A negative point is the broken backward compatibility. Ada with its representation clauses has substantial gains for practical programming close to hardware. This was one of the many(!) reasons, why I saw Ada as the best successor of Fortran. We had to run our finite element systems on all existing hardware. *************************************************************** From: Randy Brukardt Sent: Sunday, March 22, 2020 7:19 PM > Moreover, in 2010, my minimal refinement of the core language had been > diluted by Babylonian baloney (e.g. AI05-0226-1) and other off_road > thoughts. That proposal was rejected because it was judged by many to harm readability. Quick: what value does 'R' represent in base-32?? I have plenty of trouble with 'D'. :-) Additionally, the pairs '1' and 'I' and 'O' and '0' are easily confused. Note that Ada 202x includes a user-defined literal feature, so one can add any form of literal one wants to a numeric type using a custom string literal. (There's also a user-defined 'Image, so it can be made consistent). So the need can be met with a slightly less convenient notation. ***************************************************************