Hexadecimal N.
Base 16. Coined In The Early 1960s To
Replace Earlier `sexadecimal', Which Was Too Racy And Amusing
For Stuffy IBM, And Later Adopted By The Rest Of The Industry.
Base 16. Coined in the early 1960s to
replace earlier `sexadecimal', which was too racy and amusing
for stuffy IBM, and later adopted by the rest of the industry.
Actually, neither term is etymologically pure. If we take
`binary' to be paradigmatic, the most etymologically correct
term for base 10, for example, is `denary', which comes from
`deni' (ten at a time, ten each), a Latin `distributive'
number; the corresponding term for base-16 would be something like
`sendenary'. `Decimal' is from an ordinal number; the
corresponding prefix for 6 would imply something like
`sextidecimal'. The `sexa-' prefix is Latin but incorrect in
this context, and `hexa-' is Greek. The word `octal' is
similarly incorrect; a correct form would be `octaval' (to go
with decimal), or `octonary' (to go with binary). If anyone ever
implements a base-3 computer, computer scientists will be faced
with the unprecedented dilemma of a choice between two
correct forms; both `ternary' and `trinary' have a
claim to this throne.
brute force adj.
Describes a primitive programming style
one in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing
power instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the
problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive
methods suited to small problems directly to large ones....
