On Wed, 05 Jul 2000, Christopher Browne wrote:
> > I agree that rather than describing the properties of a currency for the
> > "denominator" of an amount, we should simply reference the currency. The
> > properties of it are common to all instances of amounts denominated in
> > that currency. Further, that reference can be "factored" and we can
> > simply store the numerator of each entry. (Assuming that we can recover
> > the common currency and its properties when we need to interact outside
> > of the "counting department")
>
> Before we get too excited about this, leave people open to provide
> concrete examples where this _doesn't_ work. Mind you, I will remain
> skeptical of discussions of problems with the scheme that don't display
> _concrete_ problems...
>
> I don't think there is one; the _arguable_ counterexample would be the
> situation where a market changes "denominations," but that may also be
> argued to redenominate the commodity, which means it's not really the
> same commodity anymore...
I'm confused. Which representation do you favor? You can ALWAYS replicate
"factored" information. The question is whether or not you gain (or lose) by
doing so.
I think that people are thinking only about the numeric component. There are
also properties such as "how to display" which are tied to the cross product
of commodity and locale.
I can reitterate some immediate gains if you consider the commodity
"factored".
First we are dealing only in integers that we sum. Even multiprecision
integer arithmatic is much faster than "rational" summation.
Secondly, if we have a database storing the data, it can handle integers or
"money". But I have not seeen one that can handles "rationals".
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