[PATCH v3 3/4] emacs: rename notmuch-decimal-separator to notmuch-thousands-separator

Dmitry Kurochkin dmitry.kurochkin at gmail.com
Tue Dec 20 17:41:41 PST 2011


Hi Thomas.

On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:30:48 +0100, Thomas Jost <schnouki at schnouki.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:34:03 +0400, Dmitry Kurochkin <dmitry.kurochkin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 08:29:00 -0400, David Bremner <david at tethera.net> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:59:22 +0400, Dmitry Kurochkin <dmitry.kurochkin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > What do perople think about making the thousands separator a space by
> > > > default?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Is that really good for a majority of users? I had never heard of it
> > > until now. I know this is hardly scientific, but still...
> > > 
> > 
> > Well, to me "1 000 000 000" looks better than "1,000,000,000".  But I do
> > not know about the others.  That is why I was asking :)
> 
> That's a complex topic unfortunately. I prefer "1 000 000" too, but many
> would prefer "1,000,000", others would prefer "1'000'000", and in India
> many would even prefer "1,00,0000"
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousands_separator#Examples_of_use).
> 
> The cleanest solution would be to use something that cares about the
> LC_NUMERIC environment variable. sprintf() can do such things, but I'm
> not aware of any possibility to do that in elisp.
> 

We discussed this on IRC.  And, surprisingly, everyone agreed on
changing the default to a space in a separate patch.

But my other comment for this patch is still relevant: please rename
`notmuch-thousands-separator' to `notmuch-hello-thousands-separator'.

If you decide to make another patch that changes the default to a space,
please add this link [1] to the preamble and a citation:

  Therefore the space is recommended in the SI/ISO 31-0 standard,
  and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures states that "for
  numbers with many digits the digits may be divided into groups of
  three by a thin space, in order to facilitate reading. Neither dots
  nor commas are inserted in the spaces between groups of three".

Regards,
  Dmitry

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Digit_grouping

> -- 
> Thomas/Schnouki


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