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As an engineer, I get to be fluent in both systems. Conversions between the two can get you into a lot of trouble - NASA lost a Mars probe because of it. I MUCH prefer metric/SI units, even though I still use English/Imperial in everyday usage and for some professional terms; altitude in feet, speed in knots, weight (NOT mass) in pounds. And don't even get me started on Fahrenheit vs. Kelvin and affine spaces ...
The nicest thing about SI from my point of view is that when you make a mistake, you're off by one or more orders of magnitude, and it's easy to notice. With English/Imperial, errors are often not so apparent.
More than once I've tried to explain to a fellow (but not computer savvy) engineer that 0.4 (decimal) is a repeating fraction in binary. Base-10 floating representation in binary causes all sorts of issues for numerical methods which are not unlike unit conversions.
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And for dates, either DAY MON YEAR, where MON is a three letter abbreviation (25 MAY 2016), or YEARMONTHDAY(20160526), sometimes with time appended, which sorts numerically very nicely. And always add the leading zero in either case.
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Natural sorting is only advantageous to computers, and they don't deal with partial dates. I can't remember ever needing to write code that handled dates in the form of strings that didn't even include the year. So that's not really a bonus.
Come on, admit it: the US convention simply makes very poor sense - a fact supported by the fact that almost the entire rest of the world does it the other way round.
Also, the metric system is great, not sure what you've got against that as well.
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You really love the context of d/m/y. Be here (in the leading English speaking nation in the world) we would say something like May 26th 2016. M/D/Y . In other words, it's the natural translation of language. Of your native speech works differently - enjoy - but don't tread on me.
Note that the common speech of the world is becoming English - because (unlike the French, for example) we welcome into our language all the various and colorful extension that keep enhancing its expressive nature. You will be assimilated !
So - get with the program: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, . . . the power of powers of two!
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Actually we - that is, the British - often say it that way too, although it is more common to say it as M-D-Y, especially when including the year. But my point is that basing a written, numerical short-form notation purely on natural language (which is variable anyway), without posing some kind of logical order on it, is the very basis of why the US convention is a bit daft.
By the way, I already speak English (of the Queen's variety), and it seems highly unlikely that the American short-form date notation will ever become the global norm, so I'm not sure what assimilation you're referring to..
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public obj CulturalModification(obj everything) {
Absorb(everything);
obj muchBetterVersion = Modify(everything);
return muchBetterVersion;
}
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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So why hasn't the US absorbed the much better date notation that the rest of the world uses?
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Because most Americans have no idea of geography outside the US borders. In many cases inside the US borders either.
As if the world outside doesn't really exist, so whatever they use is perfect. Imperial measurements instead of metric for example. Beer that resembles diluted water. Cars that scream in pain when shown a bendy road. A plate that only looks a reasonable size when it contains a meal for four.
Confuse 'em back and use ISO format! 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Silly person. Most of your complaints about our commodities are, well, ill founded at best and generally without merit.
As for not knowing geography outside the US - well I used to complain about that, myself. Until now, that is. Now that I stream news from all over the world I realize they were absolutely correct.
There's nothing of importance beyond the ocean shores of our glorious continent.
Where's m'gun at?
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: Where's m'gun at?
I think we should take a vote on where it should be.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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OriginalGriff wrote: Because most Americans have no idea of geography outside the US borders.
I thought the world was flat and you fell off the edge in a giant waterfall if you sailed past the horizon. And north was just frozen wasteland, and south was just desert wasteland. 
Marc
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It isn't????
Paulo Gomes
Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
—Bill Gates
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You forgot to mention miles per gallon. Not only does it use imperial measurements, it also deviates from the UK measure by the same name.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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Stefan_Lang wrote: You forgot to mention miles per gallon.
I was always fascinated by this approach, which I see as very 'American Style': I've got some resources (i.e. gallons of fuel) that I am going to exhaust - how much fun will it give me?
The European approach is the other way around: I've got a task that must be performed: Driving 100 km. How much fuel is that going to cost me? ... not 100 km pr liter, but liter per 100 km.
I do think that this says something about American philosophy as compared to European.
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It might be related to the fact that fuel is so much cheaper in the US than in europe. Here in europe, when you buy a car, you estimate the cost of the fuel it needs because it is a significant part of the full cost of owning a car. In the US, the fuel cost is comparatively insignificant compared to the price of the car itself. With that in mind, l/100km is a number that much is easier to gauge and compare: 20% more fuel consumption means 20% more fuel cost. Easy.
Example: You can set back 100€ per month to be able to buy a new 12000€ car every 10 years, but if you are driving 20000km per year, and the car needs 10l/100km, that costs another ~3000€ per year, or 250€ per month! (350€/month total) So it might make more sense to set back 150€ per year for a 18000€ car that only needs 6l/100km, or 150€ per month (300€/month total).
In the US, fuel costs a fraction of what it costs here - the calculation above would never work out.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)
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It's just one more annoyance during the average day.
BTW, can anyone tell me just exactly what the fuss is about the ninth of November?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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or, in American, the eleventh of September?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Sorry-o, me-o no speakee Swahili.
(Except for "jambo", of course, but everyone knows that much)
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Forogar wrote: or, in American, the eleventh of September?
It never occurred to me that they are close parallels. Thanks for pointing it out!
(And then one may ask: Why do they say nine eleven, when "September" means the seventh month?)
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Nope, we would typically say "September eleventh".
And as to an earlier comment many of us in America do speak the Queen's English. I think it has been proven that folks in the state of Georgia speak as Queen Elizabeth the first would have. (Just stirring the pot).
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In non-USA notation, it's 9-11 . One can always create a hub-bub with neurological aspirations.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: In non-USA notation, it's 9-11
Um, yes, I know that 9-11 is the ninth of November.
I just want to know why people make such a fuss about it.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Be cause the US is right, and everyone else is wrong
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Yeah, that's another thing... Why do the Americans drive on the right when most of the world drive, as they should do, on the left?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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