Re: Why Ada is not the Commercial Lang of Choice

[Nick Leaton <nickle@calfp.co.uk>]

Larry Kilgallen wrote:
> 
> In article <EC1zG2.DFo@syd.csa.com.au>, donh@syd.csa.com.au (Don Harrison) writes:
> 
> > However, they differ in that digits must be grouped in threes. Grouping in
> > threes is an arbitrary choice and, IMO, too restrictive. For example, it makes
> > no sense for base 2 literals. OTOH, I think Ada's free placement is too liberal
> > because it allows different groupings within the same literal.
> >
> > Something in between is probably optimal - like allowing any grouping but with
> > the restriction that it must be consistent within a literal.
> 
> I can envision an application using part numbers, where the first
> two digits indicate the plant that built the part  and the last
> two represent the revision number. In that case, 21_302_561_03
> might be a much more natural representation than 2_130_256_103.
> In fact, absent some other well-known (to humans) aspect of the
> part numbering scheme, it would also provide a better scanning
> profile than 21_30_25_61_03.
> 

I agree with the original idea, that splitting numbers in threes doesn't
make sense if you are dealing with a binary number. Also, if you were
Japanese, then splitting in 4 makes more sense.

However, your part number example is not a good one. You should be
splitting it into two. You have two attributes, plant number and 
revision number. You then have a separate problem of how to display the
information, which is turning the two pieces of information into a
string, which is displayable. How you store the information is then a
separate problem, where you may do something like storing an integer
value, of plant_number * 100 + revision_number.
-- 

Nick