Why is the 0 next to 9, not next to 1?

Re:Why is the 0 next to 9, not next to 1? by Ansil849 on Monday April 26, 2021 @12:14PM (#26944253)

But you're just proving my point: you get to 1 pound and 10p before you get to 2 pounds. So you get to a zero, 1.10, before you reach 2. That's the point of decimals that I am not understanding why people are ignoring.

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Re:Why is the 0 next to 9, not next to 1? by scrollaway on Monday April 26, 2021 @01:11PM (#26945060)

Then you are counting pennies not pounds, so you're still starting at 1.

In other words, you start mentally counting from your smallest unit of precision in use.

This is a fun thought exercise, but what a pointlessly pedantic tangent this thread took…

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Re:Why is the 0 next to 9, not next to 1? by d1sxeyes on Thursday April 29, 2021 @05:44AM (#26979119)

Absolutely, but then, the thread itself is a bit pointless, and pedantry is a pastime on HN :)

I agree, in practical terms you're counting two things - pennies and pounds. You need a zero for the pennies counter before you need a two for the pounds counter for sure.

But you don't count 'I have one hundredth of a pound, I have one fiftieth of a pound, I have three hundredths of a pound, I have a twenty-fifth of a pound' and so on.

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