Is the world coming to an end?

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Bruno Medeiros" <brunodomedeiros+spam at com.gmail> wrote in message 
news:inla56$2uoq$1 at digitalmars.com...
> 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. 
> (!)
>

I want base PI literals :)

Yum.