Right, for all we know, that's 8 options and two duplicate. It's also harder to implement because now I have to keep symbol table (or I have to refer more frequ

Right, for all we know, that's 8 options and two duplicate. It's also harder to implement because now I have to keep symbol table (or I have to refer more frequently to it.) I can't see much of a utility argument here except terseness for its own sake. In that case, why don't we just pack our own bytes?