On 07/27/14 19:11, Linda Walsh wrote:
It is more common to specify transfer sizes in SI and mean IEC if you
are in the US where the digital computer was created.
People in the US have not adopted SI units and many wouldn't know
a meter from a molehill, so SI units aren't the first thing that
they are likely to be meaning. Computer scientists and the industry
here,
grew up with using IEC prefixes where multiples of 8 are already in
use. I.e. if you are talking *bytes*, you are using base 2.
I didn't grow up in the US, and grew up with the metric system, but when I'm
talking about memory sizes I always mean IEC (2^10) and never SI (10^3).
The only pitfall here are hard disk sizes where I have to remember that
"they"
mean SI.
It is inconsistent to switch to decimal prefixes when talking about
binary numbers.
Agreed.
BTW I was playing devil's advocate with my mention of the SIGUSR1
inconsistency.
I'm still of the opinion that the dynamic switch of human units based on
current transferred amount is the lesser of two evils, since this output
is destined for human consumption.
I don't get the reason for the dynamic switch at all. Can somebody
enlighten me?
regards,
chris
