Re: Using standardized SI prefixes
On Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 08:11:23PM -0400, Ivan Jager wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Ben Finney wrote:
> >The problem is that *many* cases are incorrect; we can't say that
> >*all* of them are. That uncertainty is not amenable to a mindless text
> >substitution without judgement of each case. The solution can only be
> >for humans to find those cases where the units presented do not match
> >the quantities, and to file bugs against those packages asking for the
> >mistake to be corrected.
>
> The other solution can be for humans to find those few (if any) packages
> that say MB when they mean 1,000,000 and fix only those. Then we'd have a
> consistent system conforming to the standards most CS people expect.
>
> How many packages can you name that measure bytes in powers of 10? Are
> there any? People tell me I am making an argument from ignorance, and that
I think Ben's point is that we don't know.
You seem to claim that binary units (ie powers of 2) are natural
everywhere related to computers, but I disagree. It's natural for
memory and structures like it, but not for bitstream quantities like
network traffic.
Hard disks are different again; I don't know that there is any particular
reason for them to have 2^n byte sectors (and at the hardware level perhaps
they don't).
CD-ROMs have 2304 byte raw sectors. Most NAND FLASH chips have 2062 byte
blocks, which even throws the memory device argument out the window.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt VK3SB <hamish@debian.org> <hamish@cloud.net.au>
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