linux-ext4 - Re: [PATCH 2/2] mke2fs: use binary units in the man page

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Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.1102071154360.3927@dhcp-27-109.brq.redhat.com>
Date:	Mon, 7 Feb 2011 12:10:01 +0100 (CET)
From:	Lukas Czerner <lczerner@...hat.com>
To:	"Ted Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>
cc:	Lukas Czerner <lczerner@...hat.com>, linux-ext4@...r.kernel.org,
	adilger@...ger.ca
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] mke2fs: use binary units in the man page


On Sun, 6 Feb 2011, Ted Ts'o wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 02, 2011 at 11:43:59AM +0100, Lukas Czerner wrote:
> > Decimal units (kilobyte 10^3, megabyte 10^6 etc...) were used in
> > mke2fs manual page, however they was really meant to be binary units
> > (kibibyte 2^10, mebibyte 2^20 etc...), so change the man pages to
> > reflect that fact, even if it sounds weird.
> 
> Ugh.  Even Don Knuth agrees that the names sound stupid.  (Of course,
> his proposal of MMB and GGB haven't really gained much traction,
> either.)
> 
> I guess I'm willing to tolerate MiB and GiB, but since most people
> will ignore the 'i' and pronounce them as "Megabyte" in everyday
> speech.  I really don't want to see "mebibyte or tibibytes" spelled
> out explicitly anywhere, though.  :-(
> 
> And I think KiB is just wierd; I'm much rather see "1024 byte blocks"
> than see "1 KiB blocks".

Hi Ted,

Fail enough, I'll avoid spelling "mebibytes or tebibytes" and use the
abbreviations instead if you insist on it :)

> 
> Personally I think the names are doomed.  Even the editors for IEEE
> and ANSI journals aren't enforcing this in style guidelines; memory
> manufacturers are ignoring the IEC names entirely, and certain most
> humans never use those names in every day speech.
> 
>        	     	       	     	      	  - Ted

-Lukas
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