"A string of characters acting as numbers? Hell no. People could put in anything. '234-fake-num' isn't a real phone number! This way we'll be sure the numbers are real. Besides, look how much space we'll be saving."
My google voice number is 786-J-Finnie... I really hate that I can't enter that on a vaild phone number on many websites! Since I specificially looked for that as a phone number, I haven't memorized the actual numers of JFINNIE, so I just put in a fake number.
Bad idea as celoyd pointed out. Besides, to check whether a phone number is real or not we use regular expressions.
I think he was being facetious...
I don't think zck was arguing for phone numbers as integers. I think he was just dissecting the broken thinking that would cause someone to make that decision.
To check if a phone number is real, it's best to call it.