[QUANTITY] Choosing default accuracy/units values (Was: Re: [QUANTITY] doc consistency

[Brian Thomas]

On Monday 17 May 2004 11:57 am, Jonathan McDowell wrote:
> The counter-argument is that <unitless> is really common, especially
> for integer and string data. What do other people prefer?

	There are good "for" and "against" reasons one can offer for either
	"unitless" or "no-units-defined" as a default, so I think this is more of 
	a religious issue than anything else. For me, I'm a "unitless" man.

	Where this issue can be thought of more "rationally" is that the choice
	of "unitless" or "no-units-defined" as a default should be consistent (ideally)
	with the same choice for "accuracy" e.g. "ExactAccuracy" or "NoAccuracyDefined"
	(the latter being the "lazy" case). Thus, a choice of "unitless"  means "exact" 
	for the default cases as the same rationale applies (much integer/string data 
	are constant/definition type so that means its implicitly unitless/exact value).
	Conversely, "many people are lazy about what the real units/accuracy is and just
	leave it out" would have the consistent choice of "no-units-defined"/"no-accuracy-defined"
	as the default choices.

	=b.t.


-- 

  * Dr. Brian Thomas 

  * Dept of Astronomy/University of Maryland-College Park 
  * Code 630.1/Goddard Space Flight Center-NASA

  *   fax: (301) 286-1775
  * phone: (301) 286-6128 [GSFC]
           (301) 405-2312 [UMD]