> V6 is more difficult and variable length which is harder to explain to your grandparents. IPv6 addresses are still fixed size. They aren't variable length. T

> V6 is more difficult and variable length which is harder to explain to your grandparents. IPv6 addresses are still fixed size. They aren't variable length. The :: shortcut is just "fill with zeroes here" and your grandparents probably had lots of bank account numbers and credit card numbers they memorized as prefix, suffix and some number of zeroes in the middle. (Like the :: shortcut they might not even bother to remember how many zeroes and just fill out the boxes until it looked right.) That's still common among some banks to use account/card numbering schemes like that, even in the computer age where you probably shouldn't memorize your account number and it is better for security if the account number had something a lot more pseudo-random than a long series of zeroes in the middle. > I also think there is something to be said about people with dyslexia and how the numbers are perceived by them. I can't speak for anyone else with dyscalculia (like dyslexia but only for the ordering of numbers) but hexadecimal is a lot kinder to me than decimal. I often remember the right digits but not their order, but I rarely have such problems with "words" and IPv6's use of hex 4-digit groups looks to my brain a lot more like words than numbers, especially when a through f show up. I hate trying to remember IPv4 addresses in dotted quad format because it is sometimes a million ways to get the orders wrong even knowing the format, but I've personally had fewer problems visually/memorably with IPv6 addresses, especially when you get a nice chunky :: in there somewhere. (It's so great sometimes to just handwave away all the less meaningful zeroes.) Again, that's just my experience with my own (undiagnosed from a professional standpoint, undebilitating) dyscalculia.