As you may know, with 16rff change, we cannot anymore use a radix notation combined with an exponent notation. At least for base > 14, the exponent letter is taken as an ordinary digit. The options are: 1) revert the change 2) abandon combined radix+exponent notation all the code for printing Float with different radix, and also for scanning can be removed Or I can provide a subclass of SqNumberParser for backward compatibility. 3) find a new syntax for radix+exponent For example, 16r7f_e6 16r7f^6 16r7f#6 None of these is ambiguous with existing code. Or maybe use an uppercase R for uppercase only digits... 4) use q exponent to at least enable base 16 This is hackish and not universal, but I guess hardly anybody ever used a base > 16. ------------------------------------- What would squeak/pharo folks choose ? ------------------------------------- Personnally, I'm OK with 1) and 2). But 2) deserves a bit more discussion After all this is a change of Squeak syntax. I find Dan's notation educative and fun, especially for writing tests. But it is a non portable Squeakish thing, rarely used, and it does not really has much value for industrial usage, On the other hand, is it really necessary to parse 16rff ? I dislike 3) because I find my own propositions bad. Also, if we remove Squeak-specific syntax for compatibility reasons, why the hell adding a new uncompatible syntax? Previous usage of e notation was far better because just extending an existing syntax, not creating a new one. Maybe you'll have other ideas... Nicolas -------------------------------------