On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:14:44 -0600 Jeffrey <jss.bulk@gmail.com> wrote:
I would like to suggest adding an integer presentation type for base 36 to PEP 3101. I can't imagine that it would be a whole lot more difficult than the existing types. Python's built-in long integers provide a nice way to prototype and demonstrate cryptographic operations, especially with asymmetric cryptography. (Alice and Bob stuff.) Built-in functions provide modular reduction, modular exponentiation, and lots of nice number theory stuff that supports a variety of protocols and algorithms. A frequent need is to represent a message by a number. Base 36 provides a way to represent all 26 letters in a semi-standard way, and simple string transformations can efficiently make zeros into spaces or vice versa.
Why base 36 rather than, say, base 64 or even base 80?