Re: Bad Metric ... 1k = 1024 or 1000?

[Paul Guertin <pg@sff.net>]

Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
> Paul Guertin writes ...
> > But the Pure User, who knows nothing of the inner workings of a computer
> > but uses one as a tool, has no reason to know the size of a file in bytes
> > ("what's a 'byte'?").
> 
>      That a user may not know what a "byte" is or, even, that file size is in
> bytes does not matter. He/she knows that "k" is 1000 and, whatever the stuff in
> a file, there are numbers listed which tell how much is there and how much
> space is left.

Numbers are not intuitive. "How much room is left?" is a legitimate
question, and the answer should be in the form of a gauge or pie chart
showing "used" and "free" space, not unlike what Windows 98 does.
But maybe even that is too complicated. How about a "trouble light"
that lights up when space becomes low, prompts the user to insert
a DVD-RAM, and automatically backs up old files to it, using heuristics
to decide which files to keep and which to archive?

>      Still, there are plenty of times when plain old file size in bytes can be
> useful information. Since OS's are pretty much stuck with showing file size,
> they might as well get it right.

A decent OS should be flexible enough to show the file size in whatever
format the user wants. 1000 or 1024 bytes to the kilobyte, actual file
size or allocated space on disk, etc.

Paul Guertin
pg@sff.net