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I know it's fun to rag on Roman numerals, but they were never intended for totaling receipts. They were never designed for quick little sums, they were designed
by T_S_ 16y ago
I know it's fun to rag on Roman numerals, but they were never intended for totaling receipts. They were never designed for quick little sums, they were designed for engraving on massive long lasting objects like buildings and copyright notices on feature films, and they look pretty darned good there. Stop complaining that Roman numerals are not Arabic numerals. It's like saying counting on fingers is terrible because nobody has more than X them (That's 10 to you youngsters, or 0b1010 to you real smart alecks).
Judging a numeral by a standard it was never designed to meet is pointless. If you want to decide whether Roman numerals are a good number system or not, see if you can hammer them onto a building. I'd say you can. I may not like working with Roman numerals for grocery receipts, but that doesn't make them bad.
- rufugee 16y agoHello Reddit. Welcome to HN.
- redthrowaway 16y agoThat's much snarkier than simply saying, "how does Java differ from Roman numerals?" Your way ends conversation and attempts to belittle, my way makes the point in a way that allows for discussion.
- T_S_ 16y agoComplain if you must, but there is a serious point involved. People get invested in technology and they start to adopt certain patterns of argument that stem more from their own investment than anything else. I tried to highlight the pattern using humor. Nothing personal intended. In real life I do dislike java and try hard to avoid having to use it, precisely for the reasons highlighted in the OP. I do like Haskell, and many other things. Note: all the real Haskellers are nice and would never be as snarky as I was.
- MarkSimpson 16y ago> They were never designed for quick little sums, they were designed for engraving on massive long lasting objects like buildings and copyright notices on feature films, and they look pretty darned good there. Stop complaining that Roman numerals are not Arabic numerals. Actually, Roman numerals were designed for counting the men in your army, whereas Arabic numerals were designed for mathematics. Comparing the two isn't a good argument against redthrowaway's point at all, because both are better at the task they were designed for.
- paradoja 16y ago?!?!?!?!?! Are you saying that Roman numerals are better for counting than Arabic numerals? I suppose you don't mean count (I, II, III, IIII, V...), but show the number of men in the army. I don't see any advantage in using Roman numerals. Lets say we divide infantry in XXX maniples of CXX men each, supposing they are complete and you haven't lost people yet in battle. How is that better than 30 maniples of 120 men?
- ent 16y agoActually, roman numerals are easier to sum than arabics. To sum two roman numerals you just write all the digits together and collapse them as much as possible. There is no carrying over of digits and such. Otoh, arabic numerals are a lot easier to multiply/divide. Before the wide adoption of arabic numerals all but the most educated couldn't perform simple multiplication/division.
- paradoja 16y agoYou may have a point, but I still find easier to do 111 948 948 289 => 289 --- --- 1237 than CMXLVIII plus CCLXXXIX => CMCCXLLXXXIXVIII => MCLLXXIXVIII => MCCXXXVII but it may be that it's because what I'm used to.