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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] [RFC] Path to Saner Increment/Decrement operators
From: mark@demon-angel.eu (Mark Baker)

On 23/01/2023 14:06, G. P. B. wrote:
> However, the whole point of this RFC is to*remove*  cognitive burden for
> developers, so they don't even need to be aware of this "feature" and not
> get surprised when it kicks in.

> Moreover, by your logic, you wouldn't care if we removed support for
> alphanumeric strings and only let the PERL increment kick in for purely
> alphabetical.
> While convenient for you, someone might actually use this feature on
> alphanumeric strings, and we're back to "why is my use case being removed
> while that other just as weird one remains".

I make no judgement on alphanumeric strings, other than I can't see any 
use case for it myself, so I won't allow my objection be considered 
hypocritical; and your definition of my use case as "weird" is highly 
judgemental.


Bijective numeration using the letters of the alphabet has a long and 
ancient tradition, pre-dating our modern numeric Hindu-Arabic system 
using base 10 for place/value notation by many centuries. The Abjadi 
system used the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet; similarly the ancient 
Greeks and Hebrews, the Armenians; by Russia until the early 18th 
Century (each culture using their own alphabet). It's ironic that the 
Romans used a very different system, even though our modern western 
alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet.

These civilisations didn't consider their alphabetic numeral system "weird".


How many of the irregularities and idiosyncracies of alphanumeric 
strings could be resolved by not trying to cast them as a numeric value 
before increment/decrement; but by treating them consistently as 
strings? It would resolve the discrepancy with "5d9"; although not with 
"0xf9".


-- 
Mark Baker