Why do we pad uneven length hex numbers with leading zeros?

[BelfordZ]

Can anyone tell me why?
https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-json-rpc-filters/blob/main/hexUtils.js#L55

This is causing tests against https://github.com/ethereum/execution-apis to fail (expects hex number that is not zero-leading)

[shanejonas]

geth and the spec no longer support leading 0s

rel ethereum/execution-apis#40 (comment)
rel NomicFoundation/hardhat#1585 (comment)

[shanejonas]

rel #71
rel #70

[mcmire]

Closing this issue as it's just a question, but leaving this here for reference of course.