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Interesting how Microsoft and Google have different ideas of how percentage key (%) should work. Relevant post by Raymond Chen: “How does the [Windows] calcul
by danabramov 14y ago
Interesting how Microsoft and Google have different ideas of how percentage key (%) should work.
Relevant post by Raymond Chen:
“How does the [Windows] calculator percent key work?”
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/7047497.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/70474...
Implementing % button, Google chose an approach which is more mathematically sensible but arguably less obvious to users. For Google, 10% just an alias for 0.1. This means that if you want to calculate how much a dress with a price of $299 costs with a 20% discount, type in
299 + 299 × 20%
Perhaps, this is exactly how you think % should work.
Microsoft, however, chose to make “%” key more user-friendly, perhaps sacrificing some consistency. Windows calculator tries to use the last computed value as “the whole”. Therefore,
299 - 20%
will give you how much a $299 dress costs with 20% discount, and
299 + 5% - 20%
will help you calculate 5% tax before applying the discount.
Sadly, Google thinks
500 + 1% = 500.01
which is really not that helpful.
- elisee 14y agoI just tested it and the percent key in the Google calculator doesn't work like the one described in the linked article. It really just divides by 100. 3 + 5% = 3 + 0.05 = 3.05
- danabramov 14y agoSorry, I just reworded my comment to make it more clear. This article is about Windows calculator and I'm comparing two different approaches. Google went with simple 10% = 0.1 here, like you say.
- scotty79 14y agoThe way Microsoft did it is the same way most physical calculators I've seen work.
- Spittie 14y agoI don't get it, if i try 500 + 1% on Google i get 505 http://sadpanda.us/images/1112074-RA9OURZ.png http://sadpanda.us/images/1112074-RA9OURZ.png
- bricestacey 14y agoYou get a different result if you click the buttons versus performing a google search.
- bookwormAT 14y agowhich I think it is exactly how I would expect it to work: If I ask a question, I expect the system to guess what I really want to know and give me an answer. But a calculator should work like a calculator.
- elisee 14y agoStill a pretty big inconsistency. 500 + 1% typed right in calculator displays "500 + 1% = 500.01" in the calculator. 500 + 1% typed in the search box displays "500 + 1% = 505" in the calculator too. It's probably due to the search result being returned by some server at Google while the other one is computed locally through some client-side JS logic. I think they'll notice and unify the behavior at some point.
- kamkha 14y ago"But a calculator should work like a calculator." Yes, and no physical calculator I have ever seen would give 500.01 for "500 + 1%".