Topic for discussion: Unifying the measure and decimal proposals

[jessealama]

In plenary we've discussed the decimal proposal a number of times, iterating on the design and data model in ways big and small, for some time. More recently, my colleague Ben Allen has been working on the measure proposal.

Although these two proposals differ might appear, at first glance, to be independent, they actually overlap a fair amount in their motivation and use cases. Measure provides, namely, a solution to the problem of storing precision next to a number, which is precisely (ha!) one of the main motivations for a data model for decimal in which decimal numbers store their own precision. That's not the only thing measure is about (another issue is attaching a unit to a numeric value). But I think it makes sense to unify these two proposals.

I'd be interested in presenting the status quo of these discussions at the monthly 402 call. Further discussion can happen in a dedicated issue in the decimal repo.

[sffc]

TG2 discussion: https://github.com/tc39/ecma402/blob/main/meetings/notes-2025-01-16.md#decimal--measure-proposal