humans and logic

[Eugene Leitl]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Rainy wrote:

> >> Try writing 1,388,034,093 in binary on a piece of paper
> > 101,0010,1011,1011,1011,1000,0010,1101-ly y'rs -- Jan
>
> That's much more unweildy, isn't it?

It's not the representation, it's the operation. Try adding these things
manually, or, worse, multiplying, or dividing them. Lots of little bitsys
to keep track of.

If you want it compact, or succinct, that's what octal or hex is for.
Decimal needs not apply, because you can't just take three or four groups
of bits, and convert them back and forth via lookups.

And of course the question is not for people using the numbers daily
(though binary should be the first number system taught in school), but
for digital hardware (hint: it's called digital for a reason. No, it
hasn't got fingers, guess again).

-- Eugen* Leitl
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