[Python-Dev] %b format?

[Eric S. Raymond]

Tim Peters <tim.one@home.com>:
> Vyper's octal notation is still ugly, but whoever first thought
> 
>     0777 != 777
> 
> was a "good idea" was certifiably insane <0.25 wink>.

For anyone who doesn't know the history behind this...  

The 0xxx notation was copied from PDP-11 assembler literals -- the
instruction-set design of the PDP-11 was such that most of the
instruction subfields fit in octal digits, so this convention made it
somewhat easier to read machine-code dumps.

While I'm at it, I should note that the design of the 11 was ancestral
to both the 8088 and 68000 microprocessors, and thus to essentially 
every new general-purpose computer designed in the last fifteen years.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

"Are we to understand," asked the judge, "that you hold your own interests
above the interests of the public?"

"I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals."
	-- Ayn Rand