Re: Digit strings

[CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!C.J.Fine>]

And suggests:
>
>
> Given Lojban's kill-one-bird-with-many-stones principle, I wonder whether
> the option of listing digits in order of increasing magnitude has been
> considered. I.e. 1,234,567,890 comes out as 0987654321.
>
> The disadvantage with this is you don't know how big the number is going
> to get. But there could be some way of announcing its level of magnitude
> prior to listing the digits. Anyway, this solution is still needed even
> if digits are listed in decreasing magnitude, else you still have to wait to
> the end of the number before you know how big it is. The advantage of
> starting units first is you can compute the number as you go by a process
> of addition.
>
> Another disadvantage is where 'decimal' places go - my suggestion is only
> nice for integers.
>
> This seems like an area where it would be good for Lojban to provide
> constrained flexibility and let usage determine the preferred options.
>
I think this is worth considering, but it opens up a number of related
areas: specifically, the order of dates and times. When I read the
chapter of the textbook on dates, my immediate response was "What,
you're constraining me to quoting them in a particular order?"
I note, for example, that both ISO dates and everyday Japanese usage go
consistently from larger to smaller.
 For a direct supporting argument for And, I believe that in Arabic,
numbers are consistently read from smaller to larger (as numbers between
20 and 99 in German).

  I don't think this is high priority, though.

                kolin
                        c.j.fine@bradford.ac.uk