[PD] why does PD round numbers? (in tables, in messageboxes, etc)

[Charles Henry]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 7:32 AM, IOhannes m zmölnig <zmoelnig at iem.at> wrote:
> On 04/10/12 10:33, katja wrote:
>>
>> I mean to say that switching to any format other than decimal ASCII
>> would make it impossible for Pd to interpret patch files using the
>> current format.
>
>
> why?

I think that using any non-decimal ascii format would be bad for
backwards compatibility.  You'd need to have a function that would be
able to distinguish the decimal numbers from old patches from the
newer format.  For example, 9000 is both a decimal and hexadecimal
number--so then, you'd need identifiers to know which method to use.

It's not a very clear-cut tradeoff, to adopt anything other than
longer decimal ascii numbers.  Things could get very complicated
trying to keep multiple formats alive--or they could be simple and
just use a lot more characters.