Is the world coming to an end?

[Bruno Medeiros]

On 03/04/2011 19:22, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Lutger Blijdestijn"<lutger.blijdestijn at gmail.com>  wrote in message
> news:in9t6a$21jb$1 at 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. (!)

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Engineer