Re: decimal separator (international?

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Peter Hermann]

Chris Kaese <cdkaese@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I have tried to compile a summary of the various arguments pro comma
> as decimal marker and pro point as decimal marker. Please feel free to
> add to the list, as I may have left out something.

This list is impressive, indeed.

Well, of course, I am biased by the long_time use of Computers
which culminated in the use of the programming language Ada.
E.g. I like Ada's ability to accept different number bases
in the source code fitting like a glove when it comes to
easily write down binary, octal, hexadecimal numbers (literals) 
or even numbers with a base of 7 or 13 .   ;-)

I admit to be "pro point" for decimal marker and
"pro underscore" for grouping due to habituation,
although I am living in a "comma" country.

I like it to write 2#11.1# for a decimal 3.5
when documentation requires for a specific binary purpose.

-- 
--Peter Hermann(49)0711-685-3611 fax3758 ica2ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
--Pfaffenwaldring 27 Raum 114, D-70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
--http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/
--Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Georg Bauhaus]

In comp.lang.ada Peter Hermann <ica2ph@sinus.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote:
: Chris Kaese <cdkaese@ntlworld.com> wrote:
:> I have tried to compile a summary of the various arguments pro comma
:> as decimal marker and pro point as decimal marker. Please feel free to
:> add to the list, as I may have left out something.
: 
: This list is impressive, indeed.

And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
123'456.89

Yes, '.


Georg

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Erik Naggum]

* Georg Bauhaus @2004-10-22 13:18
> And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
> 123'456.89
> 
> Yes, '.

The superiority of this solution compared to the conflated uses of comma 
and period (or "full stop") should be obvious to anyone, regardless of 
which community they originally come from. So, if people have any sense, 
they will switch to this format and spread the word. Obviously, it does 
not matter whether you use comma or period for decimal point in this 
format, and we have one less glaring ambiguity to deal with.
	The English usage of ' and " for inches and feet, and usage of ' and " 
for minutes and seconds are sufficiently disambiguated from such numbers 
that I believe no normal reader would consider the possibility of a new 
ambiguity in these cases. I am not aware of other usage of ' that would 
naturally find its place /inside/ a string of digits; does anyone else?

Erik Naggum @2004-296
-- 
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder;
act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none;
in a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Erik Naggum wrote:
> Georg Bauhaus wrote:

> > And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
> > 123'456.89
> > Yes, '.

> 	The English usage of ' and " for inches and feet, and usage of
> ' and " for minutes and seconds are sufficiently disambiguated from
> such numbers that I believe no normal reader would consider the
> possibility of a new ambiguity in these cases.

I have seen both �degrees'minutes.decimals� and
�degrees'minutes"seconds.decimals�, so I wouldn't bet on it.

Jacob
-- 
"Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate
 agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the
 ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they
 want the ocean without the roar of its waters."
                                        -- Frederick Douglas

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Erik Naggum]

* Jacob Sparre Andersen @2004-10-22 19:29
> I have seen both �degrees'minutes.decimals� and
> �degrees'minutes"seconds.decimals�, so I wouldn't bet on it.

Both are clearly wrong, just like misspellings, so they must be ignored 
for purposes of finding counter-examples. It would help, though, if you 
could cite a source for these misguided abuses.

Erik Naggum @2004-296
-- 
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder;
act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none;
in a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Chris Kaese]

Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message news:<clb1at$9mv$2@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>...
>> And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
> 123'456.89

I am not Swiss, but Swiss websites seem to use the comma as decimal
separator; e.g. ebay.ch, websites of various banks, nestle.ch.

Are you sure you can do, for example, online banking in Switzerland
using a point as a decimal separator? I wouldn't have thought so.
Swiss keyboards, after all, seem to have a comma on the number pad,
not a point.

Regards,

Chris

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Georg Bauhaus]

Chris Kaese wrote:
> Georg Bauhaus <sb463ba@l1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de> wrote in message news:<clb1at$9mv$2@a1-hrz.uni-duisburg.de>...
> 
>>>And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
>>
>>123'456.89
> 
> 
> I am not Swiss, but Swiss websites seem to use the comma as decimal
> separator; e.g. ebay.ch, websites of various banks, nestle.ch.

In a project for a Swiss ensurance company we had been given
quite specific instructions. They specified the above format.
However, I have seen both formats used by the very same organisation.

Not related to the project, some links:

http://zefix.admin.ch/shabpdf/current/046-08032004-1.pdf

http://www.estv.admin.ch/data/sd/d/verstat/ver97.pdf

(The web pages also use comma, for example in percentages.)

> Are you sure you can do, for example, online banking in Switzerland
> using a point as a decimal separator? I wouldn't have thought so.
> Swiss keyboards, after all, seem to have a comma on the number pad,
> not a point.

number pads of computer keyboards do not usually control the ideas of
those responsible for the specification of the requirements for
using . or , in separating decimals. :-)

I think if there is a problem at all the solution is pretty obvious:
Don't use anything for grouping that could legitimately be used for
separating. Has anyone seen '_' (or ' ') seperating the fractional
part from the integer part? ;-)

Georg

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Stefan L�rchner]

>: This list is impressive, indeed.
>
>And it is not correct for Switzerland, I'd say.
>123'456.89
>
>Yes, '.

While there's no doubt to use a comma as decimal separator, in Germany
we use a "topperiod" to separate large numbers in groups of three
digits.
Unfortunately there's no possibility to use this on a computer because
nothing like this exists. So I use the ' "quotesingle" Chr39.

I think a "topdot" looks very nice as used in handwriting. The space
between the digits is not much bigger than without the dot, but you can
easily recognize the number.

There is no chance to mix this dot with a multiply sign, because the
periodcentered � is only used in mathematics where you care about
writing. In daily use, we use � something like a 45� cross or x.

By the way:

How on earth do anglosaxons (or is it only Americans?) call their
numbers above one billion???

In German language we have a logic system:
Million   1'000'000
Milliarde 1'000'000'000
Billion   1'000'000'000'000
Billiarde 1'000'000'000'000'000
Trillion, Trilliarde ...

So do the anglosaxons lack the -arde? How do they call
1'000'000'000'000'000?

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Adrien Plisson]

Stefan Lörchner wrote:
> So do the anglosaxons lack the -arde? How do they call
> 1'000'000'000'000'000?

they call this zillions, as in:
"zillions of codeline, zillions of bugs: should have used Ada"

;)

-- 
rien

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Julian Bradfield]

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In article <8h34o0dbc2h70ojvsst879nfkthko7suok@4ax.com>,
Stefan L�rchner  <me@privacy.net> wrote:

>How on earth do anglosaxons (or is it only Americans?) call their
>numbers above one billion???

Realistically, it is now Americans and Brits (not all of whom are
Anglo-Saxons!). There are still a few people like me who refuse to
give utterance to the American versions, but if I used the British
billion, I would confuse almost all of my compatriots. Sometime in the
1970s, the Treasury announced it would start using American billions,
because all the numbers it wanted to talk about were of that
order. That infected the rest of society. Confusingly, the French used
to use the American system (they invented it both).

In the (former) British and current German system, an
n-illion is 10^(6*n) and and
n-illiard(e) is 10^(6*n+3).

In the (former) French and current American system, an
n-illion is 10^(3*(n+1)).


To be fair, the -illiard words have always been problematic in
English, because they have an unnatural pronunciation. They are 
pronounced /'mili'a:d/, with a long final a, and (according to me)
more or less equal stress on the first and last syllables, but if
they were real English words (like billiard(s)!), they'd be pronounced
/'milj@d/. "Million" and "milliard" would then be too similar.
For this reason, I always say "thousand million". But that gets pretty
tedious, and it's tempting to give up and use the American system!
But I shall be strong.

Frank, 10^42 is a lot easier in both speech and writing than either
"septillion" or "tredecillion".

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Markus Kuhn]

jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield) writes:
|> I would confuse almost all of my compatriots. Sometime in the
|> 1970s, the Treasury announced it would start using American billions,
|> because all the numbers it wanted to talk about were of that
|> order. That infected the rest of society. Confusingly, the French used
|> to use the American system (they invented it both).

Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions
today, especially since computing has introduced these SI prefixes
into common vernacular.

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 29 Oct 2004 11:22:09 GMT, Markus Kuhn wrote:

> jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk (Julian Bradfield) writes:
>|> I would confuse almost all of my compatriots. Sometime in the
>|> 1970s, the Treasury announced it would start using American billions,
>|> because all the numbers it wanted to talk about were of that
>|> order. That infected the rest of society. Confusingly, the French used
>|> to use the American system (they invented it both).
> 
> Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions
> today, especially since computing has introduced these SI prefixes
> into common vernacular.

In computing Giga = 2**30, while in SI it is 10**9. [Well, if you have that
much, then 73 mio might be negligible... (:-))]

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Erik Naggum]

* Dmitry A. Kazakov @2004-10-29 12:41
> In computing Giga = 2**30

That is just plain false. Adjust your opinions accordingly.

Erik Naggum @2004-303
-- 
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder;
act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none;
in a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Julian Bradfield]

Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> writes:

> * Dmitry A. Kazakov @2004-10-29 12:41
>> In computing Giga = 2**30
>
> That is just plain false. Adjust your opinions accordingly.

It's not plain false, it's just usually false.
When quoting disk capacities, giga usually means giga; but when
quoting memory capacities, including devices such as memory sticks,
giga almost always means gibi.

A cursory Google shows that a lot of people think it primarily means
gibi in computing!

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Erik Naggum]

* Julian Bradfield @2004-10-29 13:55
>>* Dmitry A. Kazakov @2004-10-29 12:41
>>> In computing Giga = 2**30
>> That is just plain false. Adjust your opinions accordingly.
> It's not plain false, it's just usually false.

Excuse me for being precise, but a statement that pretends to be true 
always but is actually only true some of the time, is entirely false: It 
is /not/ true that �in computing�, giga = 2^30. The simple fact that a 
lot of uses of �giga� in computing are 10^9, invalidates the statement 
and its broad claim.

> A cursory Google shows that a lot of people think it primarily means
> gibi in computing!

When I want to know how mistaken how many people are, I also use Google.

Erik Naggum @2004-303
-- 
Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder;
act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.
In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none;
in a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Julian Bradfield]

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In article <mq2a52-b29.ln1@news.naggum.no>,
Erik Naggum  <erik@naggum.no> wrote:

>Excuse me for being precise, but a statement that pretends to be true 
>always but is actually only true some of the time, is entirely false: It 

Depends on your notion of truth. The statement "birds are flying
creatures with two feathered wings" has a number of well-known
exceptions, but is nonetheless true for useful meanings of "true".

In any question of linguistic usage, taking a two-valued definition of
truth is just pointless. Clearly "in computing, giga = 2^30" is not
maximally true; but it's not plain false, if one takes plain false to
mean the minimal truth value. (You weren't precise about what you
meant by "plain", so I took the meaning that seemed most plausible.)

>is /not/ true that �in computing�, giga = 2^30. The simple fact that a 
>lot of uses of �giga� in computing are 10^9, invalidates the statement 
>and its broad claim.

Only if you think the broad claim was one of absolute maximal truth,
which I don't.
I might note that the specific counter example I gave is
contentious: many people think that giga means (or should mean) gibi
in disk capacities, and that manufacturers only use giga means giga in
order to inflate their capacities. 

Binary prefixes in Google's calculator

[Markus Kuhn]

Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> writes:
|> > A cursory Google shows that a lot of people think it primarily means
|> > gibi in computing!
|> 
|> When I want to know how mistaken how many people are, I also use Google.

Type "1 gigabyte in bytes" and "1 gigabyte in gibibyte" into Google
and see what its (fully gibi aware) calculator thinks ... :(

Even worse, try "1 kilobit/second in bit/second".

Markus

-- 
Markus Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ || CB3 0FD, Great Britain

Binary prefixes and decimal separators in Google's calculator

[Björn Persson]

Markus Kuhn wrote:

> Type "1 gigabyte in bytes" and "1 gigabyte in gibibyte" into Google
> and see what its (fully gibi aware) calculator thinks ... :(
> 
> Even worse, try "1 kilobit/second in bit/second".

Horrible! That's not what I would call "fully gibi aware".

Connecting back to the topic of decimal separators, try first "3,14159 
radians in degrees" and then "3,142 radians in degrees".

Conclusion: Google's calculator is nothing but a toy.

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Peter Hermann]

In comp.lang.ada Markus Kuhn <n04W44+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions

clever   :-)  :-)

but:
giga or gibi ?
tera or tebi ?

see explanation in
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/ftp/misc/magnitudes.html		

-- 
--Peter Hermann(49)0711-685-3611 fax3758 ica2ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
--Pfaffenwaldring 27 Raum 114, D-70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
--http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/
--Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Björn Persson]

Peter Hermann wrote:
> In comp.lang.ada Markus Kuhn <n04W44+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
>>Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions
> 
> clever   :-)  :-)
> 
> but:
> giga or gibi ?
> tera or tebi ?

I suppose you can talk about gibipounds and tebidollars if you like, but 
why? We need those prefixes for things that occur in powers of two for 
technical reasons, like memory cells. I see no reason to talk about 
money in powers of two.

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Frank J. Lhota]

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"Bj�rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message 
news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net...
Peter Hermann wrote:
> I suppose you can talk about gibipounds and tebidollars if you like, but 
> why? We need those prefixes for things that occur in powers of two for 
> technical reasons, like memory cells. I see no reason to talk about money 
> in powers of two.

Actually, wouldn't life be simpler if everyone used 16 as their number base?

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Peter Hermann]

In comp.lang.ada Frank J. Lhota <NOSPAM.Lhota.adarose@verizon.net> wrote:
> "Bj?rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message 
> news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net...
> Peter Hermann wrote:
> > I suppose you can talk about gibipounds and tebidollars if you like, but 

wrong: Peter Hermann (me) did not write this.
I simply pointed to possible confusion. 
(and has been misunderstood ;-)

> Actually, wouldn't life be simpler if everyone used 16 as their number base?

I would like the octal system.
If we only were Mickey Mice with 4 fingers/hand
we had no conversion problems :-)

-- 
--Peter Hermann(49)0711-685-3611 fax3758 ica2ph@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de
--Pfaffenwaldring 27 Raum 114, D-70569 Stuttgart Uni Computeranwendungen
--http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/homes/ph/
--Team Ada: "C'mon people let the world begin" (Paul McCartney)

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Frank J. Lhota]

"Peter Hermann" <ica2ph@sinus.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote in message 
news:cltood$kcl$1@news.BelWue.DE...
> I would like the octal system.
> If we only were Mickey Mice with 4 fingers/hand
> we had no conversion problems :-)

Or just imagine having 3 additional fingers on each hand.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <cltood$kcl$1@news.BelWue.DE>, Peter Hermann <ica2ph@sinus.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:
> In comp.lang.ada Frank J. Lhota <NOSPAM.Lhota.adarose@verizon.net> wrote:
>> "Bj?rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message 
>> news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net...
>> Peter Hermann wrote:
>> > I suppose you can talk about gibipounds and tebidollars if you like, but 
> 
> wrong: Peter Hermann (me) did not write this.
> I simply pointed to possible confusion. 
> (and has been misunderstood ;-)
> 
>> Actually, wouldn't life be simpler if everyone used 16 as their number base?
> 
> I would like the octal system.
> If we only were Mickey Mice with 4 fingers/hand
> we had no conversion problems :-)

Polite children are raised not to count on their thumbs.

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Anders Wirzenius]

Peter Hermann <ica2ph@sinus.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de> writes:

> I would like the octal system.
> If we only were Mickey Mice with 4 fingers/hand
> we had no conversion problems :-)
> 

I second that. The vegetable balance in my food shop
has eight buttons per line. Would be easier to find
the right button to press. 

Anders

Octal number system

[Andrew Nowicki]

Peter Hermann wrote in thread "decimal separator (international?:"

> I would like the octal system.
> If we only were Mickey Mice with 4 fingers/hand
> we had no conversion problems :-)

Anders Wirzenius wrote in thread "decimal separator (international?:"
 
> I second that. The vegetable balance in my food shop
> has eight buttons per line. Would be easier to find
> the right button to press.

An international auxiliary language called Ygyde
has two optional number systems: decimal and octal.
Octal glyphs are shaped like binary numbers, so
they are very easy to memorize. Another good
thing about Ygyde's glyphs is a very big full stop.
http://www.medianet.pl/~andrew/ygyde/ygyde.htm

Duodecimal system (base 12) was used for some purposes by the Romans.
Hexadecimal system  (base 16) is used by some modern computer software.
Octal system (base 8) was used by some old computers.
Vigesimal system (base 20) was used by the Mayans.
Sexagesimal system (base 60) was used by the Babylonians.

To the best of my knowledge the best number systems
are octal and duodecimal. Octal has simpler multiplication
table than decimal (base 10) and its numbers are almost as short.
Duodecimal has only one advantage: non-recurring point fractions.

Re: Octal number system

[Björn Persson]

Andrew Nowicki wrote:

> To the best of my knowledge the best number systems
> are octal and duodecimal. Octal has simpler multiplication
> table than decimal (base 10) and its numbers are almost as short.

I like hexadecimal better than octal, but that's only because two 
hexadecimal digits match one byte so nicely.

-- 
Björn Persson                              PGP key A88682FD
                    omb jor ers @sv ge.
                    r o.b n.p son eri nu

Re: Octal number system

[Jeffrey Carter]

Andrew Nowicki wrote:

> Sexagesimal system (base 60) was used by the Babylonians.

Base 60 is still widely used today. 60 sec/min, 60 min/hr, 60 min/deg, ...

-- 
Jeff Carter
"We'll make Rock Ridge think it's a chicken
that got caught in a tractor's nuts!"
Blazing Saddles
87

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Andreas Prilop]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004, Frank J. Lhota wrote:

> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180
>
> "Bj?rn Persson" <spam-away@nowhere.nil> wrote in message
     ^
> news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net...

This is a lie: There was no message
 <news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net...>
There only was a message
 <news:REsgd.7419$d5.63018@newsb.telia.net>

> Actually, wouldn't life be simpler if everyone used 16 as their number base?

Actually, wouldn't life be simpler if noone used programs from
Microsoft?

-- 
Top-posting.
What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?

Re: decimal separator (international?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 14:41:53 GMT, Bj�rn Persson wrote:

> Peter Hermann wrote:
>> In comp.lang.ada Markus Kuhn <n04W44+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> 
>>>Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions
>> 
>> clever   :-)  :-)
>> 
>> but:
>> giga or gibi ?
>> tera or tebi ?
> 
> I suppose you can talk about gibipounds and tebidollars if you like, but 
> why? We need those prefixes for things that occur in powers of two for 
> technical reasons, like memory cells. I see no reason to talk about 
> money in powers of two.

The power used is arbitrary and can be voluntarily chosen as it happened in
SI, but only for continuous values, such as physical measures. Once you
leave the realm of real numbers and enter discrete mathematics (and
computing), things change. Well, you can say that you do not want to write
banking software (neither I), but in that case "damn much" will fit
perfectly. Anyway dollar is not a SI unit. Yottadollar, attodollar sound
silly. Maybe some day, after we'll stop using km/h, mph instead of m/s, Bar
instead of hPa and year instead of Ms...

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Gee Pee (was: decimal separator (international?)

[Christoph Paeper]

Markus Kuhn <n04W44+mgk25@cl.cam.ac.uk>:
>
> Gigapounds and teradollars seem perfectly acceptable solutions

By the way, I've watched the second episode of the new Battlestar  
Galactica series yesterday. Someone gave their food demand (per week and  
5e4 people) in ton(ne)s, but water in "gee pees"---was that an invented  
unit or really Gigapounds (or my bad ears)?

-- 
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "To summarize: It is a well-known fact 
that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least 
suited to do it. To summarize the summary: Anyone capable of getting themselves 
made President should by no means be allowed to do the job. To summarize the 
summary of the summary: People are a problem."