https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=364321
Tim LePés <timle...@gmail.com> changed:
What |Removed |Added
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CC| |timle...@gmail.com
--- Comment #5 from Tim LePés <timle...@gmail.com> ---
I say give people their preference. Arguing about which is "better" and why is
really just about opinion, and use case, and not likely to be productive.
Some of us have been using computers since before SI units became common. The
reason 1024 was used in the first place is because it matches the realities of
the hardware. Computers work in powers of 2 (base 2). You still get base-2
values when buying memory chips, for instance. It just makes sense.
Hard disk manufacturers, as a notable example, started using the SI units
(base-10) because of marketing, not because it helped users. You could sell a
gigabyte hard disk even though it was really somewhat short from the
traditional "gigabyte" people were used to. Lots of eople were initially upset
by this, wondering where their other 73,741,824 bytes per "gigabyte" went. It
can be argued that using the traditional base-2 measurements made more sense,
since you could easily equate the valuses between your temporary (RAM) and
permanenet (disk) storage. The name changes were the main source of confusion.
I still think "gibibyte" sounds stupid, since I grew up calling it "giga-",
not "gibi"-. But I'm not about to fight for the naming prefix. We have
discreet names for each that are now well understood. It was pretty confusing
for a lot of people used to the old names. But we've had time to get over the
name change.
I can see where the SI units make sense, especially from a non-technical
perspective. They match up with people's expectations from the world of metric
units. Fine. I would say that programs should use the current convention of
KiB and kB, MiB and MB, GiB and GB, so as to be specific about what is meant.
But, still, give people the option to prefere the base-2 or base-10 unit
representations for files and such as they prefer. Personal opinions about
which makes sense "universally" are merely subjective. There are lots of
reasons some may want to default to units that make sense for them. So let
them.
/2bits
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