this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2025
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Programmers like 1024, because that's how binary works when you keep doubling bits, and it's cleaner and more intuitive when you're working with low level code. Normies like 1000.
But they stole our beloved kB, MB, GB etc and we have to live with the stupid kiB, MiB etc.
Hum... I have some news for you.
Those words never actually meant what you think they meant, and we have to live with stuff like k(ki)B and M(ki)B. Nobody actually uses MiB or GiB.
I have no idea wtf you're trying to say here. "M(ki)B"?
"Nobody actually uses" the actual correct terms?
"Those words" - you didn't even clarify which words you're talking about.
Nobody uses memory sized in GiB, and while people use MiB in a few contexts, that's almost completely outdated by now too.
People use "millions of kibibytes" and "thousands of kibibytes" a lot. But thinking of that again, people also use "thousands of mibibytes" and "millions of mibibytes" too.
"Nobody" uses memory marketed as GiB maybe. But it IS sized in GiB. And why are you distinguishing between units here in this context anyway? What does "use" even mean here? Are you talking what people actually say, or physically use? Because they physically use all of these terms everyday.
People may not say the correct terms in everyday speech, but even today, regular, non computer people kinda think any word ending in some version of "byte" is more like a magic spell used to invoke the meaning they're intending.
People only use any of the "iB" words/abbreviations for conversations between computer enthusiasts. In general, they're still just now learning the difference between a bye and gigabyte. They know some sound bigger than others, but that's about all they know typically.
I'm not even sure when these words started tbh. I knew the difference between what they meant in different contexts, but I had literally never heard of any of the iBs until about 4 years ago or so, even being a nerd who used the one term in different contexts. It was such a relief to come across a word that meant what I was trying to say.
Either way, using the "ibi"s (there's gotta be a catchier word for the collective term in not thinking of) is anything but outdated. Being correct will never be outdated.
Take a look in the actual size of the memory you have around.
Those measurements still exist, they've just been renamed into the somewhat more awkward KiB, MiB, GiB, etc. I'm aware changing the terminology – while resolving the inconsistency with other things that get measured with SI-prefixes – creates issues, though.
Well, I say they've been renamed, it's actually a bit of a shit show.
Take a USB drive and plug it into a Windows PC and everything appears a different size compared to on Mac, because they define MB/GB/TB/etc differently to one another.
Linux of course depends on your distro and desktop environment, but virtually all of them pick either GB or GiB and actually mean what they say they mean.
Nowadays most programmers don't need to care about working with bits directly. And in general, it's much better if the system is aligned with literally every other measurement unit in meaning. I also think it's oftentimes deceiving exactly because it's so close to 1000 that you just behave like it is, untill it actually starts making a difference at larger scales.
I think that for most people in 99% of usecases it would be better for MB to actually mean mega, and for the 1% you can clarify with MiB that it's 1024.
I suppose if you're staying in a high level like JS, yeah, but if you're sitting there defining the width of your types with stuff like uint16_t or int32_t, you probably want to be using the former system.
how dare you go against the nagus!
It’s just Rom getting used to throwing his weight around, too polite to be any other.
It's because decimal is a terrible number system. If we had gone with dozenal numbers instead everything would be perfect. Instead we have a shitty counting system that leaves tons of headaches.