Base 16 should be hexadecimal in Unicode HOWTO

[RamchandraApte]

BPO	13799
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @terryjreedy, @mdickinson, @ezio-melotti, @merwok, @sandrotosi

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/ezio-melotti'
closed_at = <Date 2012-08-20.21:40:58.136>
created_at = <Date 2012-01-16.12:50:45.895>
labels = ['type-feature', 'docs']
title = 'Base 16 should be hexadecimal in Unicode HOWTO'
updated_at = <Date 2012-08-20.21:40:58.135>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/RamchandraApte'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-08-20.21:40:58.135>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'ezio.melotti'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2012-08-20.21:40:58.136>
closer = 'terry.reedy'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2012-01-16.12:50:45.895>
creator = 'Ramchandra Apte'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 13799
keywords = []
message_count = 7.0
messages = ['151354', '151437', '163893', '163912', '163914', '163917', '168636']
nosy_count = 8.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'terry.reedy', 'mark.dickinson', 'ezio.melotti', 'eric.araujo', 'sandro.tosi', 'docs@python', 'Ramchandra Apte']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue13799'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.2', 'Python 3.3']

[RamchandraApte]

"base 16" should be "hexadecimal" in the Unicode HOWTO in both Python 2 and 3 docs.

[ezio-melotti]

Do you mean the "base 16" in this sentence: "A code point is an integer value, usually denoted in base 16."?
Why would "hexadecimal" be better than "base 16"?

[merwok]

I think that when I started programming I was exposed to “hexadecimal” (e.g. HTML character references can use decimal or hexadecimal numbers) before understanding the generic principle of bases for numbers, so I’m sympathetic to the request. Terry, Sandro, do you have feedback on that?

[terryjreedy]

I learned about different number bases in 8th grade math class (a long time ago) and how to use base 2 to win nim. I learned 'octal' and 'hexadecimal' much later. In the absence of an official, documented vocabulary for such non-Python concepts, I think this should be closed as overly picky and based on an erroneous premise. In any case, programmers should know both terms. Anyone with a deficient math education can look up 'base 16' on Wikipedia and be redirected to hexadecimal as a synonym and read an article that is much longer than one might expect, with more detail than most would want to know.

A more obscure term that one might more reasonably object to is 'radix', as in 'radix 16', as a synonym for 'base'.

[birkenfeld]

±0 from me.

[mdickinson]

I was tempted to suggest that 'hexadecimal' would be more searchable than 'base 16', but the first Google hit for 'base 16' is:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal

:-)

[sandrotosi]

I tend to agree with Terry that this report can be closed: base 16 is quite known and it's high likely that if you know what hexadecimal is, you also aware of the concept of "base X" and viceversa.

If no-one objects, I'd just close it.