Re: Using standardized SI prefixes
Ivan Jager wrote:
> I think you missed the point. The only times it is not rounded is when
> the user is specifying a size. (And even then it is sometimes rounded.)
Rounding doesn't render distinguishing between GB and GiB useless,
except perhaps in the extreme case when you're *only* interested in the
order of magnitude.
>>> I thought this argument was mostly about measured sizes anyways,
>>> such as what you would get from ls -lh, df -h, du -h, or their GUI
>>> equivalents. These are all rounded.
>>
>> Any time the software says "GB" when the quantity was actually
>> calculated in 2^30, or says "GiB" when the quantity was actually
>> calculated in 10^9, the units are mismatched. Whether the quantity was
>> rounded is irrelevant to this fact.
>
> It was relevant enough for Alex to say sizes aren't rounded... Yes,
> accuracy, precision, and ambiguity are all separate things. Rounding is
> not completely irrelevant though, since most of the time "1 GB" is
> correct, "1 GiB" is also correct.
Again, this is an extreme example. A more average case might be "3.2
GB", which is *not* a substitute for "3.2 GiB". Do you not agree that
rounding can be done to more than one significant digit?
--
Magnus Holmgren
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