Re: Excell can't add

From: Chris R. Lee (chrislee.fedupwithspm_at_freesurf.fr)
Date: 03/01/04 

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 22:16:07 +0100

The fact that ISO is involved confirms that there is a problem (I know the
p-word is forbidden on the other side of the pond).

For those who don't know how these things are dis(organised), ISO proposes
and individual national authorities dispose.

A decimal point on or above the line gets mixed up with ordinary
punctuation, arithmetic multiplication, etc. The point of my original
posting was to point out that it might be a good idea sometime to settle the
issue. Unicode is coming in slowly but surely. There's room in it for a
decimal separator symbol, but I suggest that a problem that should not be
underestimated is finding a typologically attractive one. Page presentation
and layout is a very difficult subject.

Before I stop, I propose that anyone who thinks standardisation easy should
try to get in the habit of writing dates correctly. Today is 2004-03-01 in
ISO and (2-century old) astronomical notation. If you write 01/03/04 (UK,
France), 03/01/04 (the US region), 04/03/01 (Scandanavia and most of Asia),
bonjour mouldy foodstuffs, dud contracts and patents, overdue payments ...
and crashed spaceships.

Regards

"Norman Harker" <njharker@optusnet.com.au> a écrit dans le message de news:
etxeLl1$DHA.620@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> Hi JE!
>
> Thanks for the reference on that one.
>
> Re the ISO position. The quote I was was:
>
> "In accordance with an ISO Council decision, the decimal sign is a
> comma in all ISO documents." ISO 31-0:1992
>
> Now whether that just applies to ISO documents or is a standard, I'm
> not so sure. I think it's a Standard where you are in an ISO
> compliance situation.
>
> I'll have to get a copy of this Standard some time. (Unfortunately,
> you have to pay!)
>
> --
> Regards
> Norman Harker MVP (Excel)
> Sydney, Australia
> njharker@optusnet.com.au
> Excel and Word Function Lists (Classifications, Syntax and Arguments)
> available free to good homes.
> "JE McGimpsey" <jemcgimpsey@mvps.org> wrote in message
> news:jemcgimpsey-B9701F.17371129022004@msnews.microsoft.com...
> > Actually, NIST is quite specific:
> >
> > http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec10.html
> > 10.5.2 Decimal sign or marker
> > The recommended decimal sign or marker for use in the United
> States
> > is the dot on the line [4, 8]. For numbers less than one, a zero
> is
> > written before the decimal marker. For example, 0.25 s is the
> > correct form, not .25 s.
> >
> > (Fer cryin out loud, they're *physicists*! They wouldn't leave
> something
> > like that to chance - it might lead to, say, miscalculating a
> trajectory
> > to Mars or somethin'!)
> >
> > > Chances of a decimal dot being dropped approach 0!
> >
> > "approach" == "are indistinguishable from"
>
>