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[Python-ideas] Proposal for default character representation

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Thu Oct 13 05:24:51 EDT 2016 
Mikhail V wrote:
> But: you claim to see bit patterns in hex numbers? Then I bet you will
> see them much better if you take binary notation (2 symbols) or quaternary
> notation (4 symbols), I guarantee.

Nope. The meaning of 0xC001 is much clearer to me than
1100000000000001, because I'd have to count the bits very
carefully in the latter to distinguish it from, e.g.
6001 or 18001.

The bits could be spaced out:

1100 0000 0000 0001

but that just takes up even more room to no good effect.
I don't find it any faster to read -- if anything, it's
slower, because my eyes have to travel further to see
the whole thing.

Another point -- a string of hex digits is much easier
for me to *remember* if I'm transliterating it from one
place to another. Not only because it's shorter, but
because I can pronounce it. "Cee zero zero one" is a
lot easier to keep in my head than "one one zero zero
zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero
one"... by the time I get to the end, I've already
forgotten how it started!

> And if you take consistent glyph set for them
> also you'll see them twice better, also guarantee 100%.

When I say "instantly", I really do mean *instantly*.
I fail to see how a different glyph set could reduce
the recognition time to less than zero.

-- 
Greg
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