[Bug-apl] About fractional notation

Juergen Sauermann

2017-08-16 17:41:37 UTC

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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hi Elias,<br>
<br>
that would break cut-and-paste from APL output back into APL. And
the subtle difference<br>
between / and </font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">⁄
could be difficult to notice for vision-impaired people like
myself. Not to talk<br>
about small fonts with only a few pixels.<br>
<br>
I would also suggest that people do not use <b>⎕PS←1 N </b>for
normal program output, but only for<br>
debugging purposes. In my opinion the real value of fractions (if
any) is the improved precision<br>
of internal computations and not in how the output looks like. And
depending on some devices<br>
displaying<b> </b></font><font face="Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><b>⁄</b>
might not be a good practice either. For example, my email
client (Thunderbird)<br>
displays </font></font><font face="Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font face="Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif"><b>⁄</b></font></font> as 2 characters.<br>
<br>
Finally, there is a note regarding the equality of <b>N </b>and
<b>⍎⍕N </b>in the ISO standard (page 236,<br>
chapter 15.4.1 Monadic Format) which could not be satisfied with</font></font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font face="Helvetica, Arial,
sans-serif"><b> ⁄ .<br>
</b><br>
/// Jürgen<br>
<br>
<b><br>
</b></font></font>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 08/16/2017 06:39 PM, Elias Mårtenson
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CADtN0W+Cc1whj4Xf3qKXD7aP7pBu8JX3gsFXmkf0p1=***@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="auto">Currently, the division symbol is used to
represent fractional numbers. I would like to suggest the use of
FRACTION SLASH (U+2044) instead. I think that would look better,
and more intuitive.
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Note that this symbol is different from a
regular slash, /, in several ways. First and foremost, it has
a different angle (usually closer to 45°). Secondly, its
purpose is to render fractions, and some fonts take advantage
of this and will render the numbers around the symbol
differently (offset to to bottom left and top right
respectively). Here's an example, and I'm not doing any tricks
at all with the text, all I do it's to put the fraction slash
in there instead of the division sign: 1⁄3456.</div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">At least in Gmail on my phone thus renders
beautifully. And even if the font doesn't have direct support
for fractional rendering, it will still look nice. </div>
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Regards, </div>
<div dir="auto">Elias </div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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