this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024
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My reasoning is that the period is a "stronger" punctuation mark than the comma, and it should be used for the more important separation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

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[โ€“] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't know, the period might feel stronger to you because you have already accepted this meaning for text. For others, the comma feels "stronger" in the context of numbers. Partly because they are used to it, but it makes some sense too, because it is larger and has a defined direction. A period is just a little dot and, when written by hand, could easily be mistaken for a random smudge and vice versa an accidental contact of pen to paper could more easily be mistaken for a dot than for a comma.

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

You're right; it's because of the established meaning. If I were creating a writing system from scratch in a contextless vacuum I'd switch them.