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ISO 8601 ftw rule (gregtech.eu)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by lena@gregtech.eu to c/196

!iso8601@lemmy.sdf.org gang, rise up

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[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

largest to smallest is correct. 1 mile is larger than 20 meters. if i had specified numerical value or somesuch, maybe you'd be correct. though significance works as well.

[-] Kacarott@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

Largest to smallest is at best ambiguous. It can refer to the size of the number itself, or the size of the unit.

There is a reason this exact concept in maths/computer science is known as the "significance" of the digit. Eg. The "least significant bit" in binary is the last one.

[-] Umbrias@beehaw.org 1 points 2 months ago

significance refers to a measurement certainty about a number itself, especially its precision! and is unrelated to the magnitude/scale. the number and dimension "2.5634 mm" has more significant digits than the number "5,000 mm", though the most significant digit is 2 and 5 respectively, and least significant 4 and 5 respectively. this is true if i rewrite it as 0.0025634 m and 5 m. it does work for doing what you say in this case because a date is equivalent to a single number, but is not correct in other situations. that's why i said it does work here.

largest to smallest increment is completely adequate, and describes the actual goal here well. most things are ambiguous if you try hard enough.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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