3 ms·

I really appreciate commas a separators within numbers. One man's trash, I guess...

• Sylos 9y ago
  The 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 ago
    All 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 ago
      Well, 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.