[Numpy-discussion] Possible roadmap addendum: building better text file readers

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Alan G Isaac <alan.isaac at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/2012 2:28 PM, Pauli Virtanen wrote:
>> ISO specifies comma to be used in international standards
>> (ISO/IEC Directives, part 2 / 6.6.8.1):
>>
>> http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=10562502&objAction=download
>
>
> I do not think you are right.
> I think that is a presentational requirement:
> rules of presentation for documents that
> are intended to become international standards.
> Note as well the requirement of spacing to
> separate digits. Clearly this cannot be a data
> storage specification.
>
> Naturally, the important thing is to agree on a
> standard data representation.  Which one it is
> is less important, especially if conversion tools
> will be supplied.
>
> But it really is past time for the scientific community
> to insist on one international standard, and the
> decimal point has privilege of place because of
> computing language conventions. (Being the standard
> in the two largest economies in the world is a
> different kind of argument in favor of this choice.)

Maybe we can just agree it is an important option to have rather than
an unimportant one,

Best,

Matthew