Prior discussion: issue 1306, issue 1433, earlier pre-RFC.
All else being equal, it seems to me the smallest possible change from the C syntax is desirable, and it looks like the earlier pre-RFC proposes just that:
[the problem with the C syntax
0xFF.Fp1
] is there is an ambiguity between a hex float literal and a field and/or method off of an integer.
...
[A straightforward solution] is to require the+
or-
sign in the exponent.0xFF.Fp+1
is completely unambiguous: since integers have no fields, it will always be rejected by the typechecker, regardless of its context. As such, it is 100% backwards compatible (except to the writers of syntax extensions) to make0xFF.Fp-1
a single lexeme.
I'm tempted to just send a PR.