The Grumpy Editor's Python 3 experience

Position is trivial to remember since it's the same way file permissions are shown by ls etc. Most of the detail you suggest isn't used 99% of the time: people really only care about a few possibilities: 4 for read-only and 6 for read-write, then add one if you also want execute.

I already clearly (I think) explained the specific issue I had. I don't object to the text form, and as mentioned I do use it when I need to use the "+" or "-" forms of chmod for example. However I think poor design choices make it harder to use correctly and so I prefer the numeric system on the command line when possible. There's little possibility of mixing up the order of three numbers.

Please note I'm speaking here specifically of the "chmod" command line syntax.