5 ms·
A suggestion for the author: Please avoid commas (or dots) as thousands separators. My brain parses "4,604ms" as "about four milliseconds", which would be amazi
by majewsky 9y ago
A suggestion for the author: Please avoid commas (or dots) as thousands separators. My brain parses "4,604ms" as "about four milliseconds", which would be amazing, but is very much not what you mean.
ISO recommends half-width spaces as thousands separators to avoid this kind of confusion. Also, I think thousands separators can just be skipped if your numbers are only four or five digits wide.
- mcny 9y agoI can only imagine. I already hate it when I see something like 1.375€. I can't imagine how infuriating it must be for you. However, I don't know how to half width space. Thoughts?
- userbinator 9y agoNo spaces is my preference.
- johnhenry 9y agoI really appreciate commas a separators within numbers. One man's trash, I guess...
- Sylos 9y agoThe problem is that many countries don't use the comma as thousands separator and rather use it as decimal separator. (And then the dot as thousands separator.) So, "1,234,567.890" becomes "1.234.567,890". If all you have is "7.890" or "7,890", you need to know what system the author uses. What the guy proposes is always using spaces as thousands separators, independent of the system you're in. So, then it would be written as "1 234 567.890" or as "1 234 567,890". The spaces are almost universally understood and don't collide with other meanings. It would still be possible for someone to be confused, if you're at the decimal separator and write your regional separator there, but it would cut out half the confusion.
- johnhenry 9y agoAll good points. The proposal, however, does make the think about this: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/, so I don't know if we'll ever come to a good solution :/.
- Sylos 9y agoWell, this new standard is backwards-compatible to the old standards, as in people will understand it, regardless of what they've learned beforehand. So, I don't think this new standard is really competing with the others.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoThis seems to be a European issue perhaps? I've never once been confused by a comma in a number. In fact, it makes them easier to read, not harder. Can you describe your experience with numbers? Are you a mathematician or in some other scientific field? Also, it seems odd to make a request like this of a (seemingly) random author on the internet. It feels similar to making a demand to change writing style. (ie, oxford comma, em-dash, etc...) Do you think it's reasonable to ask someone else, for what seems to me, is a cultural or occupational perspective should be adhered to just because of an individuals momentary state of confusion?
- user5994461 9y agoYou must be American then because that's the American format. Different countries and languages have different format of numbers. That's one of the most common issue in internationalization. If you send a bill for a 5,000 dollars service, expect your international customers to send you back five dollars. The comma is broadly interpreted as the decimal separator.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoNot just America uses dot as the decimal separator, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DecimalSeparator.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DecimalSeparator.svg Blue uses the dot, green uses the comma. By population dot wins (since India and China use the American style).
- yxhuvud 9y agoWhat that map show is that space wins because otherwise someone is bound to be confused.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoNo, it's not possible to be confused if you are reading English. It's a comma for thousands and period for decimal. That is how it's done in English. If someone wrote it in German or French and used the wrong decimal separator, then it's an error.
- tzahola 9y agoIMO we should introduce locale-dependent number formatting to HTML.
- gruez 9y agoYou can probably hack one together by styling a <input type="number">
- user5994461 9y agoExcel has it and it's a complete nightmare. Never know in advance what's the locale of the document and the excel.
- yxhuvud 9y agoIt certainly doesn't help that it also make export as csv locale dependent :(
- lostgame 9y ago>> Please avoid commas (or dots) as thousands separators. You might as well say 'please ignore the standards of your country in favour of mine.' Are you really not aware that this is the standard in Europe?
- larkeith 9y agoParent is clearly a European (or denizen of another local that uses commas as decimal markers), as they interpreted 4,604ms as slightly over 4ms. Also, they advise using an ISO (International Standards Organization) standard, specifically to avoid misinterpretation while remaining locale-independent.
- wutbrodo 9y agoWhile it is an odd request, that's not really fair to the parent commenter. He's asking for a _neutral_ representation to be used, so that those used to both format find it easier to read. He even goes out of his way to specify that he doesn't want his format used. It's the same reason I write dates YYYY-MM-DD, a habit I picked up after working in a large company with employees from all over the world. (Though I generally wouldn't request other people to use it as well)
- rocqua 9y agoNo, the request is "Please use a method people from all countries can understand". As OP said, the idea here is to use half-spaces as thousand separators. For the decimal separator, it doesn't matter much what you use. I'd guess the period because it is slightly more prevalent. This method is clear to all users, rather than confusing all of mainland Europe.