Re: Configure.help editorial policy

Mike Eldridge
2001-12-20T22:43:56Z

On Thu, Dec 20, 2001 at 02:27:02PM -0600, Reid Hekman wrote:
> Perhaps if we could be so bold as to back Donald Knuth's KKB,MMB,GGB
> proposal (of which I learned here:
> http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-3.html ). I understand
> that muddying the waters is not the way to see clearly into the depths
> of computer science for the unwashed masses, but the ambiguity that
> currently exists is very real. I try to explain these issues on what
> seems like a daily basis to many and the duplicitous terms are not
> helpful.

KKB looks a million times better than KiB. maybe it's the lowercase
letter, i don't know.

> > My personal esthetic distaste for the new terminology (gack! "kibi"
> > sounds like something I would feed my cat!) is less important
> > than following best practices. I'm hoping it will seem less ugly as it
> > becomes more familiar.
>
> It certainly rated high on my kibbles'n'bits meter as well :-)
>
> Whatever we do with the abbreviations, I would strongly recommend we
> spell out documention to help educate ( and ease the transition if we
> switch terms) wherever possible. For example:
>
> 4 binary kilobyte pages
> 1024 decimal kilobyte disk
> 8.4 decimal gigabyte disks
> 4 binary gigabytes of memory
> 10 decimal gigabits of bandwith
>
> or if that offends the sensibilities:
>
> 4 kilobytes (binary)
> 1024 kilobytes (decimal)
> 8.4 gigabytes (decimal)
>
> I know that they are long on keystrokes, but in lieu of an accepted and
> aesthetically pleasing standard, they are clear and unambiguous.

i will agree that the ambiguity sucks and something needs to be done
about it, but i really do find the SI units for binary plain ugly. i
doubt that anyone would be willing to type as much text for referencing
simple sizes as you explained above.

perhaps simply a base suffix:
4KB(2) == 4 * 2^10
4MB(2) == 4 * 2^20
4KB(10) == 4 * 10^3
4MB(10) == 4 * 10^4

it's definitely wierd to look at, but it seems to get the point across
easier. it defines the base, instead of referencing a name (kibi?
please, i don't think enough people will start using these
grossly-sounding prefixes enough to make it the de facto standard).
or perhaps a (d) or (b) qualifier to refer to decimal or binary.

perhaps everybody should just suck it up and go with what's standard?

-mike

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