Re: Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys
Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 01:37:22 -0300
Message-ID: <4a177d3f$0$23746$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>
paul c wrote:
>> paul c wrote: >>
> ...
>
>> Sure it can, as long as you count things in fifths or tenths. I once >> worked with a product that measured distances in 2032nds of an inch so >> that a 16th of an inch and a millimeter were each an integer multiple >> of the base unit.
>
> I hate to mention international standards when Celko might be lurking
> around to take the point off into the wild blue yonder but in this case
> I have say that such a system would inevitably be living in an ivory
> tower when it was decided by some pretty big bodies years ago that for
> purposes of comparison, database data exchange or not, a millimeter
> equals 0.03937 inches, period, full stop.
No problem, just measure everything 100,000ths of an inch. ;)
> So any system that tries to
> handle both millimeters and inches without fixed-point decimal hardware
> will need to include elaborate, intricate software algorithms to do
> elementary arithmetic. To me, this is totally stupid but is perhaps
> another example of your point that regression is more present than
> progress. The countless hours IEEE has spent on floating-point binary
> amazes me, the only explanation I can think of is that humans are more
> comfortable studying what they are familiar with not what they aren't,
> which seems crazy, it's only the occasional human who has the temerity
> to study what he doesn't know.
IEEE is a bunch of engineers. Engineers use scientific notation all the time, which is basically what floating-point binary is. Received on Sat May 23 2009 - 06:37:22 CEST