Thank you for your explanations, Walther, and thank you redglyph for chiming in. I totally understand the reasoning for making the decimal separator the "flag" for determining a number's nature. Adding this information by adding a base / other marker would be quite cumbersome when dealing with integer-only functionalities.
However, coming back to my initial thought on the screen notation, a possible way of getting number display in a more readable order may be:
- 1) Keep the decimal separator key as the integer / real marker during input as it is currently implemented.
- 2) FIX (and, depending on preference, SCI and ENG) define the position of the decimal separator on screen (aka "glued to the screen").
- 3a) Display REALs as advertised / implemented. The same goes for all other data types aside from Integers (e. g. COMPLEX etc.).
- 3b) Display INTEGERs in the same format as implemented now, i. e. without the decimal separator displayed, but shift the number to the left by n places to match the display settings defined in FIX n.
This way, the entries on the four stack levels displayed would line up and would be more accessible at a quick glance, while maintaining the easy input and discernibility of reals and integers.
I very much suspect that users working extensively with integers would not use display modes with large
n (i. e. many decimal places) anyways, so the loss of space when leaving decimal places blank might be acceptable.
Nevertheless, judging from the rather sparse reactions from other fellow members of this forum, I suspect, mildly put, that this issue is not on the top of the priority list for many (and so it surely shouldn't be for you either, Walther, and the great team behind the project). Nothing one cannot get used to.