[plug] Calculator that uses commas , for thousands seperation

[Bernd Felsche]

Gavin Chester <gavinchester1 at hotmail.com> writes:
>On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 11:19 +0800, Richard Meyer wrote:

>> > Anyway it was along the lines of Australia will be adopting the
>> > numerical formats supported by the EU. This, from memory,
>> > involves replacing the humble '.' decimal separator with a ','
>> > and I think spaces in between each "set" of thousand. Or
>> > something of that nature. Can't remember the time frame, I
>> > think it was something like 10 years. 

>> > There was also something about date separators changing from '/' to
>> > something else.. 

>> > Others please feel free to jump in and correct any mistakes or
>> > oversights, coffee hasn't kicked in yet.. 

>> Yup, that's the European format
>> 123,456.78  becomes
>> 123 456,78  Gonna confuse the crap out of you for a few years  ;-)

>> Had it in South Africa since the seventies.

>What does this mean in terms of teaching the kids the SI* units that
>have existed for god knows how long as the standard for all/most
>disciplines?  This convention you're talking about breaks with that as
>far as I can see, so it is just rubbish to be confusing the kids and
>public IMHO.

>*(SI = Systeme International d'Unites - you have to say it with a French
>accent ;-) for those not familiar)

"Nothing" to do with SI. Lots to do with ISO.
Ambiguity in trade (and technology) would be reduced.

Although it's unlikely that yoou'd want to order a steel rod with a
diameter of 24,000 mm in Australia; it'd be quite common in "ISO
countries".
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
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