Regarding the proposed Binray Literals Deprecation

[Walter Bright]

On 9/10/2022 1:19 AM, Max Samukha wrote:
> Bit flags are easier to read as binary grouped in nibbles. For example:
> 
> enum ubyte[16] ledDigits =
>      [
>          0b0011_1111, // 0
>          0b0000_0110, // 1
>          0b0101_1011, // 2
>          0b0100_1111, // 3
>          0b0110_0110, // 4
>          0b0110_1101, // 5
>          0b0111_1101, // 6
>          0b0000_0111, // 7
>          0b0111_1111, // 8
>          0b0110_1111, // 9
>          0b0111_0111, // A
>          0b0111_1100, // b
>          0b0011_1001, // C
>          0b0101_1110, // d
>          0b0111_1001, // E
>          0b0111_0001, // F
>      ];
> 
> Those are the bit masks for a 7-segment display. Of course, you could define 
> them by or'ing enum flags or translating into hex, or use a template, but that 
> would be annoying.

Interesting that you brought up 7-segment display data, as I've actually written 
that stuff for embedded systems, and once again as a demonstration for the ABEL 
programming language.

A couple things about it:

1. The visual representation of the binary doesn't have any correlation with how 
the display looks.

2. It's a one-off. Once it's written, it never changes.

3. Writing it in hex isn't any difficulty for 10 entries.

A more compelling example would be, say, a character generator ROM, which I've 
also done.

    0b01110
    0b10001
    0b11111
    0b10001
    0b10001

and you'll be doing a couple hundred of those at least. Wouldn't this be more 
appealing:

"
    .XXX.
    X...X
    XXXXX
    X...X
    X...X
"

? Then write a trivial parser, and use CTFE to generate the binary data for the 
table. Of course, such a parser could be used over and over for other projects.