Re: [RFC] Changing the unit of an offset

[Mohammad-Reza Nabipoor]

Hi, Jose.

On Sat, Feb 06, 2021 at 12:53:42PM +0100, Jose E. Marchesi wrote:
> 
> Hi people!
> 
> David Faust has been writing some Poke, and was kind to give me a lot of
> feedback on the language.
> 
> While using poke, he often found himself to look at the value of some
> given offset, but he would get it in bits:
> 
>   (poke) anoffset
>   128#b
> 
> Now, if we wanted to see that offset in byts instead (or some other
> unit) we could do this:
> 
>   (poke) anoffet/#B
>   16
> 
> But that gives us a magnitude, not an offset.  It would of course be
> possible to write:
> 
>   (poke) (anoffset/#B)#B
>   16#B
> 
> But that is too cumbersome.
> 
> So, what about having some short convenient syntax to change the unit of
> an offset?
> 


Do we really need a new syntax for this?
I see this situation as a UX problem for poke program and not the Poke
language.

What about changing the pretty-printer of offsets to print something like
this:

    (poke) anoffset
    (16#B) 128#b

Or some other forms.

If somebody really needs to change the offset type, he/she can use a normal
cast (using `as`).


Regards,
Mohammad-Reza