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From: Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>
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Subject: Re: Problems using struct pack/unpack in files, and reading them.
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 17:53:54 -0500
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Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> writes:
> Actually, the real question is, is the unary - *really* so useful that
> it merits existence or is it just something that was mindlessly copied
> into programming languages from elementary school arithmetics?

The alternative, if you want to be able to specify negative numbers at
all, is to put - in the literal syntax. So what's "x-1"?

I suppose you could use some *different* symbol in the literal syntax
for negative numbers. I had a calculator once that used a different
symbol (looked like a small superscript minus sign) for it. But Python
is limited to ASCII for basic syntax elements for good reasons.