|  My personal preference is in fact to use number bases according to
|their strengths.  For a calculation which I would perform in decimal
|(e.g., on a calculator), I use decimal specification of the numbers.  I
|might tend to use binary for bitmasks, but it isn't really terribly
|readable, so I generally use hex.  This appears to be what you are
|saying you *actually* do.

I generally use decimal notation for constants that represent counts
or quantities, and hex for constants whose bit representation is sig-
nificant.

For example,

        movlw   16
        movwf   Count
Loop:
        movlw   $30
        xorwf   PORTB
        decfsz Count
         goto   Loop

The constant in the first line could have been written as $10, but
its real meaning is 'sixteen'.  The number in the fourth line could
have been written as 48, but its really meaning is 'bits 4 and 5
set; others clear'.

> gets another vote.  Not depending on the RADIX setup gets a strong
> Thumbs-Up.

|  As I don't really think in hex by default, decimal seems a good
|default radix.

Decimal is the proper default radix (if you want to use Octal or
binary, I suppose you could).  Hex is NOT a good default radix.
If I write "movlw AC" or "movlw 5D", what does those mean?  If I'd
have to write "movlw 0AC" or "movlw 5Dh" to make the meaning clear,
why should I not just use the Motorla-standard notation "movlw $AB"
which is just as concise but more meaningful?

> So, the 0xFF gets my vote (notice the lower-case "x" and uppercased
> Hex-digits :-) .

|  That is the style I generally use for hex.  Only because so many
|people appear addicted to this Intel crap notation.  Motorola convention
|($ for hex, % for binary) is *immesurably* cleaner, including parsing.

One of the beauties of the Motorola notation is that numbers can
be written out to their actual length.  Eight-bit quantities get
written as two digits; sixteen-bit quantities get written as four.
With the Intel notation, 8-bit quantities 00h-9Fh get written as
two digits while 0A0h-0FFh take three.  I have yet to see anyone
state a reason why alpha suffixes are better than non-alpha pref-
ixes.