I have to agree with Mike. Human language is surprisingly tolerant of overloading and inference from context. Neurotypical people have no problem with it and perceive a software engineer's aversion to it as being pedantic and strange. Note that "bits" was a term for a unit of money long before the invention of digital computers.
Aaron There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you -- Will Rodgers On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Gordon Mohr <goj...@gmail.com> wrote: > [resend - apologies if duplicate] > > Microbitcoin is a good-sized unit, workable for everyday transaction > values, with room-to-grow, and a nice relationship to satoshis as 'cents'. > > But "bits" has problems as a unit name. > > "Bits" will be especially problematic whenever people try to graduate > from informal use to understanding the system internals - that is, when > the real "bits" of key sizes, hash sizes, and storage/bandwidth needs > become important. The "bit" as "binary digit" was important enough that > Satoshi named the system after it; that homage gets lost if the word is > muddied with a new retconned meaning that's quite different. > > Some examples of possible problems: > > * If "bit" equals "100 satoshis", then the natural-language unpacking of > "bit-coin" is "100 satoshi coin", which runs against all prior usage. > > * If people are informed that a "256-bit private key" is what ultimately > controls their balances, it could prompt confusion like, "if each key > has 256-bits, will I need 40 keys to hold 10,000.00 bits?" > > * When people learn that there are 8 bits to a byte, they may think, > "OK, my wallet holding my 80,000.00 bits will then take up 10 kilobytes". > > * When people naturally extend "bit" into "kilobits" to mean "1000 > bits", then the new coinage "kilobits" will mean the exact same amount > (100,000 satoshi) as many have already been calling "millibits". > > I believe it'd be best to pick a new made-up single-syllable word as a > synonym for "microbitcoin", and I've laid out the case for "zib" as that > word at <http://zibcoin.org>. > > 'Zib' also lends itself to an expressive unicode symbol, 'Ƶ' > (Z-with-stroke), that remains distinctive even if it loses its stroke or > gets case-reversed. (Comparatively, all 'b'-derived symbols for > data-bits, bitcoins, or '100 satoshi bits' risk collision in contexts > where subtleties of casing/stroking are lost.) > > (There's summary of more problems with "bit" in the zibcoin.org FAQ at: > <http://zibcoin.org/faq#why-not-bits-to-mean-microbitcoins>.) > > - Gordon > > On 5/1/14, 3:35 PM, Aaron Voisine wrote: >> I'm also a big fan of standardizing on microBTC as the standard unit. >> I didn't like the name "bits" at first, but the more I think about it, >> the more I like it. The main thing going for it is the fact that it's >> part of the name bitcoin. If Bitcoin is the protocol and network, bits >> are an obvious choice for the currency unit. >> >> I would like to propose using Unicode character U+0180, lowercase b >> with stroke, as the symbol to represent the microBTC denomination, >> whether we call bits or something else: >> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0180/index.htm >> >> Another candidate is Unicode character U+2422, the blank symbol, but I >> prefer stroke b. >> http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2422/index.htm >> >> Aaron >> >> There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole >> government working for you -- Will Rodgers >> >>> On Apr 21, 2014 5:41 AM, "Pieter Wuille" <pieter.wuille@gm...> wrote: >>> >>>> On Apr 21, 2014 3:37 AM, "Un Ix" <slashdevnull@...> wrote: >>>> >>>> Something tells me this would be reduced to a single syllable in common >>>> usage I.e. bit. >>> >>> What units will be called colloquially is not something developers will >>> determine. It will vary, depend on language and culture, and is not >>> relevant to this discussion in my opinion. >>> >>> It may well be that people in some geographic or language area will end up >>> (or for a while) calling 1e-06 BTC "bits". That's fine, but using that as >>> "official" name in software would be very strange and potentially confusing >>> in my opinion. As mentioned by others, that would seem to me like calling >>> dollars "bucks" in bank software. Nobody seems to have a problem with >>> having colloquial names, but "US dollar" or "euro" are far less ambiguous >>> than "bit". I think we need a more distinctive name. >>> >>> -- >>> Pieter >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> "Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE >> Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get >> unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. >> Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free." >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs >> _______________________________________________ >> Bitcoin-development mailing list >> Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > "Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE > Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get > unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. > Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free." > http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs > _______________________________________________ > Bitcoin-development mailing list > Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Accelerate Dev Cycles with Automated Cross-Browser Testing - For FREE Instantly run your Selenium tests across 300+ browser/OS combos. Get unparalleled scalability from the best Selenium testing platform available. Simple to use. Nothing to install. Get started now for free." http://p.sf.net/sfu/SauceLabs _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
