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Comment by cpeterso | Hacker News Reader

BitInt's "n" suffix appears to stand for "numeric", but that seems confusing when typeof 1 === "number" and typeof 1n === "bigint". Why not an "i" suffix for "integer"? I understand that a "b" suffix is probably reserved in case JavaScript adds support for binary literals.

https://tc39.github.io/proposal-bigint/#prod-BigIntLiteralSu...

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'i' suffix are often used in languages for complex numbers. For example, in ruby '1i' evaluates to 0+1i as a complex number.

I suspect they didn't want to conflate the two types.

1i is a bit more difficult to read than 1n in many fonts. I don't think any numeral is plausibly confused with n, so 'iNt' makes some sense as a suffix IMO.

As an aside, c# uses "L" to denote literals as 64-bit integers. "l" works too, but "L" is encouraged for the same reason you give ("l" could be confused as "1")

64-bit integers are referred to as 'long' in languages I'm more familiar with, so personally I would have expected an "L" suffix. 32-bit integers are referred to as 'integers' in many languages, so I wouldn't expect an 'i' suffix. In any case, I certainly agree that "n" is confusing since Javascript already has a numeric type.

Maybe to avoid confusion with mathematical imaginary notation.

I suspect it is more that in mathematics, n is used to indicate integer values as opposed to for example x, which is used with real values.

> BitInt's "n" suffix appears to stand for "numeric"

It actually stands for "not numeric"

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