2 ms·

You might as well use a Decimal at that point, which usually combines an integer mantissa with some inverse exponent of 10. Otherwise you're applying that expon

You might as well use a Decimal at that point, which usually combines an integer mantissa with some inverse exponent of 10. Otherwise you're applying that exponent everywhere you use the value, whether you display it or use it in a mathematical expression.

samwillis 5y ago
I think the advantage of ints over Decimal is interoperability of systems. Anything with a REST api or JSON doesn’t have native support for Decimals, so to use them you have to represent them in component form as an object or as a string. Ints just make that easer at the slight cost at display time. Stripe is a good example of this. > Otherwise you're applying that exponent everywhere you use the value, whether you display it or use it in a mathematical expression. Slightly disagree, I think it’s only when displaying you have to convert to a “human readable” decimal form. They don’t need converting to Decimal for processing. It’s also worth noting there are actually two none decimal currency’s still in use: “Today, only two countries have non-decimal currencies: Mauritania, where 1 ouguiya = 5 khoums, and Madagascar, where 1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-decimal_currency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-decimal_currency
- creata 5y ago
  > Anything with a REST api or JSON doesn’t have native support for Decimals This is a very slight nitpick (that might be wrong) but I think it's perfectly in line with the JSON specification to interpret JSON numbers as decimals.
  - samwillis 5y ago
    You are right, both the ECMA. standard and RFC leave the implementation of numbers open to the parser and language: "JSON is agnostic about the semantics of numbers. In any programming language, there can be a variety of number types of various capacities and complements, fixed or floating, binary or decimal. That can make interchange between different programming languages difficult. JSON instead offers only the representation of numbers that humans use: a sequence of digits. All programming languages know how to make sense of digit sequences even if they disagree on internal representations. That is enough to allow interchange." https://www.ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-404_2nd_edition_december_2017.pdf https://www.ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-4... https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7159 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7159 And most JSON parsers allow you to extend and change how types are handled. I think however from a developer point of view by standardising on ints you reduce the risk of making a mistake in your implementation. I think the point is though that as long as your system doesn't need to handle fractions of a cent/pence/etc then using them as the base representation and only doing integer math makes the system simpler. It moves the complexity of currency to the display layer away from the business layer. Obviously there are times when you need to be able to handle smaller units and a decimal type would be correct there.

samwillis 5y ago

I think the advantage of ints over Decimal is interoperability of systems. Anything with a REST api or JSON doesn’t have native support for Decimals, so to use them you have to represent them in component form as an object or as a string. Ints just make that easer at the slight cost at display time. Stripe is a good example of this. > Otherwise you're applying that exponent everywhere you use the value, whether you display it or use it in a mathematical expression. Slightly disagree, I think it’s only when displaying you have to convert to a “human readable” decimal form. They don’t need converting to Decimal for processing. It’s also worth noting there are actually two none decimal currency’s still in use: “Today, only two countries have non-decimal currencies: Mauritania, where 1 ouguiya = 5 khoums, and Madagascar, where 1 ariary = 5 iraimbilanja.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-decimal_currency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-decimal_currency

creata 5y ago
> Anything with a REST api or JSON doesn’t have native support for Decimals This is a very slight nitpick (that might be wrong) but I think it's perfectly in line with the JSON specification to interpret JSON numbers as decimals.
- samwillis 5y ago
  You are right, both the ECMA. standard and RFC leave the implementation of numbers open to the parser and language: "JSON is agnostic about the semantics of numbers. In any programming language, there can be a variety of number types of various capacities and complements, fixed or floating, binary or decimal. That can make interchange between different programming languages difficult. JSON instead offers only the representation of numbers that humans use: a sequence of digits. All programming languages know how to make sense of digit sequences even if they disagree on internal representations. That is enough to allow interchange." https://www.ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-404_2nd_edition_december_2017.pdf https://www.ecma-international.org/wp-content/uploads/ECMA-4... https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7159 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7159 And most JSON parsers allow you to extend and change how types are handled. I think however from a developer point of view by standardising on ints you reduce the risk of making a mistake in your implementation. I think the point is though that as long as your system doesn't need to handle fractions of a cent/pence/etc then using them as the base representation and only doing integer math makes the system simpler. It moves the complexity of currency to the display layer away from the business layer. Obviously there are times when you need to be able to handle smaller units and a decimal type would be correct there.