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Comment by kmarc | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact: it's a dot, not a "decimal point".

That dot has many interpretations; in dates, sometimes it separates the month from year, or the day from a month. In version numbers, it separates major from minor, etc.

It's so much not a "decimal point", that in some languages (Hungarian and German, for instance) it is a thousands separator, whereas for decimal fractions a comma is used (10,000.00 in English is 10.000,00 in Hungarian, making Excel flip)

It is really just a dot. Our interpretation is what makes it a certain kind of separator. Or not a separator at all, like at the end of this sentence.

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I don't agree. I'm from Belgium and I also use a comma, but that doesn't mean I would put hours and minutes as 8.35 or 8,35. No, it's 8:35.

Numbers with a dot or comma means it's decimal. Your date reference makes no sence because either / or - is used in those cases, not dots or comma's.

Basically, having a dot or comma adds to the confusion when working with non decimal numbers.

>Your date reference makes no sence because either / or - is used in those cases, not dots or comma's.

In my (european) country a dot is used - for example 5.11.2023.

Good point, the system would work just as well if it was something like:

w36:2

But it wouldn't cause nearly as much confusion or decimal place issues relating to improper automation.

> Numbers with a dot or comma means it's decimal.

But... It doesn't in IP addresses, version numbers, dates, with different locales, and possibly many other uses.

These examples clearly show that "numbers with a dot" doesn't always mean decimal.

A dot is a dot. Mainly with the _role_ of a separator. When you interpret it, it might mean a _decimal_ separator for you, but as well might mean a thousand-separator for MS excel with the German locale.

That depends on the country. For example, in Japan it is very common to write dates with either a dot, or with the full kanjis for year, month and day.

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