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Ledger is almost great software, except that it uses signed numbers. Why?!
by juped 6y ago
Ledger is almost great software, except that it uses signed numbers. Why?!
- adamnew123456 6y agoDepends what you mean - signs for input or signs for output? If the reactions to TFA are any indication, compared to the amount of effort you have to go through to explain the credit/debit notation, account signs are fairly straightforward. Just start from the rule that assets are positive and you can derive the rest with some fairly basic examples. For output? I guess you could apply some sign normalization so that Income or Accounts Payable would be positive, but if you understand where the signs come from I don't see the benefit in dropping them. The other thing to know is that Ledger itself isn't aware of what constitutes a debit vs. credit (or a "naturally positive" vs "naturally negative") account, so you'd have to tell it up-front which ones should be sign-normalized for display.