Re: [Gretl-users] The usage of "," and ";" and "." in Europe
Hi,
My 2 cents (Euro or US$) ;).
My understanding of the Portuguese situation, is that most of the
Statistics books and papers, are from the English language. Also
Statistical software is rarely translated (and localized), so the
notation in teaching is always English based.
It is the author option to alter the decimal separator in software
inputs and outputs. If the author does that, then must include a
clear information about this modification (or users will see software
errors).
Remember, also the thousands separator!.
If I would be writing a text with examples from a certain software, I
would keep the decimal notation, and inform the reasons why. This can
even be omitted if the target audience implicitly knows it (as I think
we Portuguese do).
---
(I remember those times when using Lotus123, and wanting to make
reports with comma as decimal separator. I am happy that these days we
can use fully our language notations in most of software).
When I entered the gretl translation adventure, I did not know of any
translated Statistical software. Is it there any other?
Best Regards,
Hélio Guilherme
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
<r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it> wrote:
On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jan 2010, Talha Yalta wrote:
>
>> So my question is: How common is the use of comma as the decimal
>> seperator in econometric texts in other European countries?
>
> In this country, the recent tendency is to freely use the comma or the dot
> and let the reader guess, which is not difficult in most cases. I am a bit
> of a purist when it comes to languages and I'm all in favour of linguistic
> diversity, but IMHO having different decimal separators by country is stupid
> and inefficient. I don't see how a Turk, an Italian or a Frenchman could
> make fun of Brits and Americans because of inches, pints and ounces and, at
> the same time, defend the comma instead of the dot.
Upon re-reading my own message, I thought I'd better clarify to avoid
flamefests: I'm not saying you, Talha, are stupid, no more than I'd call
Allin stupid for saying "It's 20 miles from here" instead of "32
kilometers". Having different conventions for the decimal separators is
stupid. That said, it may be worthwhile to adhere to a stupid convention in
some cases (I myself use miles and pounds and pints when I'm in those
barbaric lands).
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti
_______________________________________________
Gretl-users mailing list
Gretl-users(a)lists.wfu.edu
http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-users