🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <markg.79.726169747@county.lmt.mn.org>, markg@county.lmt.mn.org (Mark Gilbert) writes:
|> [let's not repeat _all_ these quotes...  again...]
|> 
|> I have identified the root of this whole big-endian/little-endian debate.  
|> The conflict is is between text and numbers.  We read left to right.  But, 
|> if you were to number the digits of an integer, you would do it right to 
|> left.  The one's digit would be 0, the ten's digit, 1, etc.
|> 
|> This should never have been the case.  We adopted our number system from the 
|> Arabs, and the Arabs read right to left.  For them, the direction of reading 
|> text and numbers is CONSISTENT.  The whole problem arose because we failed 
|> to reverse the numbering system when we borrowed it from the Arabs.

Can you explain, then, why Roman numbering has the small units to the
right?  (Yes, I know there's that peculiar subtract-to-the-left rule,
but it seems to me that the rule is essentially the same as the arabic
one.

|> I propose that we now correct this historical oversight.  Let us write 
|> numbers least significant digit first.  The bang symbol can be used to 
|> replace the decimal point, in order to distinguish little-endian numbers 
|> from big-endian.  The integer six hundred and fifty four should now be 
|> written !456.  Sixteen dollars and twenty five cents is now $ 52!61.

Hmmm.  It'll never catch on.
--
Robin (Keep Radio 3 != Classic FM) Fairbairns       rf@cl.cam.ac.uk
U of Cambridge Computer Lab, Pembroke St, Cambridge  CB2 3QG, UK