Why abbreviation is not the default metric?

[barseghyanartur]

Stats of the six look weird (as if it shows number of Gigabytes downloaded, not the total number of downloads). Why is abbreviation not the default metric?

[psincraian]

Because abbreviation is not a standard metric prefix https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

[hugovk]

I'd argue that standard doesn't apply here and makes things more confusing (see https://github.com/psincraian/pepy/pull/180, https://github.com/psincraian/pepy/issues/192, https://github.com/psincraian/pepy/issues/346).

• We say a kilometre and gigabyte, but we don't say "a kilodownload" or "gigadownload".

• We don't use prefixes for "number of downloads".

• We say "a thousand downloads" or "a billion downloads".

"Number of downloads" are not an SI unit: seconds, amperes, kelvin, etc nor used as a non-metric units.

[psincraian]

To understand, are you suggesting to remove the prefixes? 🤔

[hugovk]

I'd suggest using B instead of G for billion, like in https://github.com/psincraian/pepy/pull/180.

[psincraian]

I know that some people complained, but there are only 4 complaints in 3 years I don't see is that bad as there is no standard. Some reasons I think G is better than B:

• People created ~10 times more personalized badges with SI units compared to abbreviation, so there is a clear preference.
• I know downloads is not an SI unit but I still think metric units prefixes are almost universal and every software engineer and datascientist is familiar with the term.
• Billion in some countries is 10E9 and in others is 10E12, so it can create confusion for other people.
• NPM downloads badge uses G instead of B for billion downloads.

[barseghyanartur]

@psincraian:

Honestly, I didn't know about the B vs G story until I recently bumped into the stats of the six package (one of the few that reached the billion score) which might be the answer to your remark about only 4 complaints in 3 years.

[hugovk]

Hi!

• People created ~10 times more personalized badges with SI units compared to abbreviation, so there is a clear preference.

May be because so few are in the billionaire's club, that "System metric" is the default, and the badge creator doesn't explain the difference between "System metric" and "Abbreviation"

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• I know downloads is not an SI unit but I still think metric units prefixes are almost universal and every software engineer and datascientist is familiar with the term.

Sure, in the context of gigabytes, but not in the context of "number of things".

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• Billion in some countries is 10E9 and in others is 10E12, so it can create confusion for other people.

From https://github.com/psincraian/pepy/pull/180#issuecomment-565153122:

The "million million" definition is historical, both American and British English now recognize 10^9 as a billion.

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• NPM downloads badge uses G instead of B for billion downloads.

Please could you point to one?

https://www.npmjs.com/package/lodash doesn't have a badge, but it does show:

Weekly Downloads 39,341,043

And doesn't have any prefix, SI or abbrev such as:

Weekly Downloads 39M

Thanks!

[barseghyanartur]

@psincraian:

Hey, sorry, now I see your point. It's indeed very confusing (that various countries have different definitions for billion and onwards). I'm totally fine to leave it as is then.

[psincraian]

Hey,

May be because so few are in the billionaire's club, that "System metric" is the default, and the badge creator doesn't explain the difference between "System metric" and "Abbreviation"

May be or may be not :-)

Sure, in the context of gigabytes, but not in the context of "number of things".

Well, in all the International System of Units it applies (watt, ampere, metre, kilogram, etc). Also, as you point it's used for non-SI metrics also like bytes, but also decibels, and dollars.

From the definition from Wikipedia

A unit prefix is a specifier or mnemonic that is prepended to units of measurement to indicate multiples or fractions of the units.

I think we can consider a download as a unit of measurement.

The "million million" definition is historical, both American and British English now recognize 10^9 as a billion.

It's true for the USA and UK, but the other half of the world is using a billion as 10^9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scale#Current_usage

NPM downloads badge uses G instead of B for billion downloads.

Check lodash on shields.io: and here you can see the default text formatter

[psincraian]

I will convert this to a discussion :)