[Python-ideas] Proposal for default character representation

[Mikhail V]

On 16 October 2016 at 02:58, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

>> even if it is assembler or whatever,
>> it can be made readable without much effort.
>
>
> You seem to be focused on a very narrow aspect of
> readability, i.e. fine details of individual character
> glyphs. That's not what we mean when we talk about
> readability of programs.

In this discussion yes, but layout aspects can be also
improved and I suppose special purpose of
language does not always dictate the layout of
code, it is up to you who can define that also.
And glyphs is not very narrow aspect, it is
one of the fundamental aspects. Also
it is much harder to develop than good layout, note that.

>> That is because that person from beginning
>> (blindly) follows the convention.
>
> What you seem to be missing is that there are
> *reasons* for those conventions. They were not
> arbitrary choices.
Exactly, and in case of hex notation I fail to see
how my proposal with using letters instead of
what we have now, could be overseen at the time
of decision. There must *very* solid reason
for digits+letters against my variant, wonder what is it.
Hope not that mono-width reason.
And basic readability principles is somewhat that
was clear for people 2000 years ago already.

>
> So, if anything, *you're* the one who is "blindly
> following tradition" by wanting to use base 10.
Yes because when I was a child I learned it
everywhere for everything, others too.
As said I don't defend usage of base-10
as you can already note from my posts.

>
>> 2. Better option would be to choose letters and
>>
>> possibly other glyphs to build up a more readable
>> set. E.g. drop "c" letter and leave "e" due to
>> their optical collision, drop some other weak glyphs,
>> like "l" "h". That is of course would raise
>> many further questions, like why you do you drop this
>> glyph and not this and so on so it will surely end up in quarrel.
>
>
> Well, that's the thing. If there were large, objective,
> easily measurable differences between different possible
> sets of glyphs, then there would be no room for such
> arguments.
Those things cannot be easiliy measured, if at all, it
requires a lot of tests and huge amount of time,
you cannot plug measure device to the brain to
precisely measure the load. In this case the only choice is to trust
most experienced people who show the results which worked
for them better and try self to implement and compare.
Not saying you have special reason
to trust me personally.


>
> The fact that you anticipate such arguments suggests
> that any differences are likely to be small, hard
> to measure and/or subjective.
>
>> But I can bravely claim that it is better than *any*
>> hex notation, it just follows from what I have here
>> on paper on my table,
>
>
> I think "on paper" is the important thing here. I
> suspect you are looking at the published results from
> some study or other and greatly overestimating the
> size of the effects compared to other considerations.

If you try to google that particular topic you'll see that there
is zero related published material, there are tons of
papers on readability, but zero concrete proposals
or any attempts to develop something real.
That is the thing. I would look in results if there
was something. In my case I am looking at what I've achieved
during years of my work on it and indeed there some
interesting things there.
Not that I am overestimating the role of it, but indeed it
can really help in many cases, e.g, like in my example
with bitstrings.
Last but not the least, I am not a "paper ass" in any case,
I try to keep only experimantal work where possible.

Mikhail