LabVIEW
Be careful with formula node!
Well, I live in the US, and it's quite obvious that the rest of the world doesn't matter.
So... what's the problem? 
lmtis wrote:
Well I have a love-hate relationship with the metric system. In regular life I hate it because I grew up with the other units and I have an intuitive grasp of them. Whenever calculations are required, metric obviously rules. Can't get any simpler or more logical. But what's with the decimal comma?
Agreed. (I knew my earlier comments would get a a bit of a flame war going.
)
Learning engineering in college, it was definitely easier working problems using the metric system. But now in the real world, I don't do so many problems from scratch. Equations and formulas are predetermined/preprogrammed by Engineering standards, spreadsheets, programs.... Once the pain of conversion factors was done and verified the first time for whatever we use, it isn't necessary to reinvent the equations/conversion every day. Growing up in the US, I have an innate feel for how much 100 lbs. is or how long 6 feet are. KG, no sense of weight at all. And certainly not for how long something like 450 mm would be.
Wayne's wikipedia link was pretty interesting as to how a comma (or really a comma like symbol) was used in ancient times to be the separator. And the comment that the Germans use the German word for comma.
But really, the use of a comma as a separator is really way too much trouble in the modern computer world. Just browse the forums. A few times a month, someone is having problems using a comma separated value file with Excel because a comma was also used as the decimal separator. Also, commas are traditionally used as separator in lists. I know those comma loving countries will never stop using it, but you've got to admit using a decimal comma has caused people far more headaches than have been caused by a decimal point.
Well the fact of the matter is that the comma has just as much tradition as the decimal point.....
I get the impression that our american colleagues are getting close to refer to the others using the comma seperator as "Commies"..... 
Hey, maybe that's what started the cold war...
Shane
smercurio_fc wrote:Well, I live in the US, and it's quite obvious that the rest of the world doesn't matter.
So... what's the problem?
Strange..... 
I was sure the Gorge Bush doctrine was not vailid any more
[quote]Well I have a love-hate relationship with the metric system. In regular life I hate it because I grew up with the other units and I have an intuitive grasp of them. Whenever calculations are required, metric obviously rules. Can't get any simpler or more logical. But what's with the decimal comma? [/quote]
"In the Middle Ages, before printing, a bar ( ¯ ) over the units digit was used to separate the integral part of a number from its fractional part, a tradition derived from the decimal system used in Indian mathematics.[1] Its regular usage and classification can be attributed to the Iranian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi. Later, a separator (ˌ) (a short, roughly vertical, ink stroke) between the units and tenths position became the norm. When this character was typeset, it was convenient to use the existing comma (,) or period (.) instead."
Sweden, all nordic countries, heck i'd say most of europe atleast, uses decimal commas. The swedish word is also [decimal comma], although the influence of english based computers and programming languages have made people started saying [decimal point/dot] every so often.
Looking at the history i'd say the comma is clearly alot closer to the "short, roughly vertical ink stroke". 🙂
We also uses commas as separators most of the time, but with an added space of semi colon instead it's quite clear what consitutes a list.
Using comma as decimal separator has the effect that we use single quote as thousands separator.
1,000,000.00 <-> 1'000'000,00
/Y
"Why do you Americans name a national sports league hardly noticed by other than Americans for the "World Series""
Because we can.
