Re: [PATCH] git-fetch: more terse fetch output

From: Steffen Prohaska <prohaska@zib.de>
Date: Nov 4, 2007, 09:56 UTC
Message-ID: <EB9F9DF7-0D71-4542-9049-5C0942304076@zib.de>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.0.9999.0711031645350.21255@xanadu.home>

On Nov 3, 2007, at 9:50 PM, Nicolas Pitre wrote:

Show 33 quoted lines

> On Sat, 3 Nov 2007, Mike Hommey wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Nov 03, 2007 at 04:30:27PM -0400, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
>>> On Sat, 3 Nov 2007, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 3 Nov 2007, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Receiving objects: 100% (5439/5439), 1.60 MiB | 636 KiB/s, done.
>>>>
>>>> I mostly like this, but can we please just use "MB/kB" instead of
>>>> "MiB/KiB"?
>>>>
>>>> I hope it was some kind of joke on crazy EU bureaucrats that  
>>>> just wasn't
>>>> caught in time.
>>>
>>> I don't care either ways.  In fact my own preference is for MB/ 
>>> kB, but
>>> if I had used that first I'm sure someone else would have asked  
>>> for the
>>> purist notations.
>>
>> As far as you don't claim 1MB is 1024KB, it's okay.
>
> [ heh, I knew someone would say something ]
>
> Yes, to me, 1MB is 1024 KB.  Always been, until those idiotic hard  
> disk
> manufacturers decided to redefine the common interpretation of what
> everyone else used to consider what a MB is just to boost their
> marketing claims.

I believe it doesn't matter what prefix we use for a _progress indicator_, as long as we use the same prefix for the the amount already transferred and the bandwidth. A precise language doesn't matter here.

Here is a short excerpt from a discussion of the standard. I haven't downloaded the full document "IEEE Trial-Use Standard for Prefixes for Binary Multiples" but copied from Wikipedia <http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix>:

“This standard is prepared with two goals in mind: (1) to preserve the SI prefixes as unambiguous decimal multipliers and (2) to provide alternative prefixes for those cases where binary multipliers are needed. The first goal affects the general public, the wide audience of technical and nontechnical persons who use computers without much concern for their construction or inner working. These persons will normally interpret kilo, mega, etc., in their proper decimal sense. The second goal speaks to specialists—the prefixes for binary multiples make it possible for persons who work in the information sciences to communicate with precision.”

Binary multiplier make it possible to communicate with precision. If you use the binary prefixes it is absolutely clear what you are talking about. The meaning of the old prefixes depend on the context.

But all this does not matter here. We are talking about a progress indicator. Precision doesn't matter. The user wants to be sure that something is happening and get an idea of how much longer it will take to finish the fetch. An approximation is sufficient.

What matters though is saving two characters, because the line width is limited. So lets take "MB, kB".

	Steffen