Re: [Banshee-List] Fwd: 13 decimal places

["Allan Day" <allanday fastmail fm>]

>> In the old Banshee we broke the duration down into days, hours, minutes,
>> seconds. It's just way too verbose. What's the point in actually knowing
>> that granularity?
>>
>> We chose to use a single number in a single scale. If you have days of
>> music, why do you care that there are 2 hours, 3 minutes, 5 seconds on
>> top of that? It's just noise, and detracts from other useful information
>> in the status bar.

I see the logic there. I totally understand the need to keep it neat and
simple. That principle is important. Still, I wonder whether it could be
balanced against the need for relevant and easily intelligible
information.

I think it's important to distinguish between two separate issues here.
First: what data should be displayed, and second: how that data should
be displayed. Let's take the first issue first:

> In the previous discussion, a few reasons were mentioned why
> more precise information is used. Decimals (at all) are hard to interpret,
> even if it's just "4.5 hours". Also, am I the only one that actually sets up
> a (reasonably) precise playlist? I like to finish that last song in the
> morning (just) before I have to run off to work. :)

> That's perfectly fine in the Library, however, when you've got playlists
> that are < one hour, or less than a days worth for the obsessive-
> compolsive, having 3.6 minutes worth of music is not a proper way to
> measure time.

These two comments show that the information displayed is used in a
number of different ways. I can see two different uses here: 1) seeing,
precisely, how long a playlist is, and 2) seeing, in an approximate way,
how much music is in your library. I suspect that one function this
serves is to be enable you to register just how big your library is. You
can say, 'check out how much music I've got!' And you can also say:
'mine's bigger than yours!' :)

What is significant about this is that your definition of noise changes
as the use changes.

> Cutting down on noise is a good thing, however, you *do* want to adjust
> the threshold on which you filter the noise depending on the total
> length of the tracks.

Yes, I totally agree with this.

> I'd find the following formatting rules alright:
>   * 1 item, 49 seconds, 1.2 MB
>   * 3 items, 8 minutes, 12 seconds, 12 MB
>   * 29 items, 3.5 hours, 104 MB
>   * 106 items, 1.2 days, 527.9 MB

I like this solution a lot. My main issue is with how divisions of hours
and days are expressed. This the second issue: how data should be
displayed.

To me, using a decimal place to express units of time just feels odd.
This may be especially felt by the less technically/mathematically
literate. So, the question becomes - is there a way to concisely express
sub-divisions of days and hours in a familiar way? One possible solution
could be to use ratios. These could be formatted as superscript. For
example:

* 29 items, 3 1/2 hours, 104 MB
* 106 items, 1 1/4 days, 527.9 MB

Using this method, I don't think you'd want to get any more detailed
than going down to quarters of an hour - you'd want to round up/down.

Best,

Allan

--- 
  Allan Day
  Email: allanday fastmail fm
  Jabber: allanday jabberlive org
---