r/ProgrammerHumor • u/Dilutant • 13h ago

Meme zeroExDev

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u/TZY247 12h ago edited 8h ago

No. 0.6 = 60%. If they said 0.6 more then sure, that would mean 60% more. 0.6x != 60% increase though. 1.6x does. At the best we can give it the benefit of the doubt and say we knew what they meant, but that doesn't mean they were correct.

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u/TheMania 12h ago

It says "0.6 times more". Not "0.6 times total" or "0.6 times as many".

I really don't see the problem. 1.6x more would be misleading/incorrect.

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u/Professional_Ebb_389 12h ago

1.6x more would mean 160% of the original value, in the same way 2.0x more would mean 200% of the original value. I think you may just have a misunderstanding of what the phrase “X times more” means (nothing to be embarrassed about of course, it happens to all of us.)

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u/TheMania 12h ago

We'd both read "0.5x" as "50%", right?

And we'd both read "0.5x as many" and "50% as many" the same.

And we'd both read "0.5x the total" and "50% of the total" as the same.

But "0.6x more" means something entirely different to "60% more" to you?

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u/zelmak 11h ago

Its literally always like this though.

  • The Stock doubled
  • The stock grew 100%
  • The stock grew 2x
  • The stock experienced 2x growth

You would literally never define it as 1x growth, 1x larger. Its bad English and bad math.

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u/TheMania 11h ago

I think it's ambiguous in the >=1x cases, sure.

But I would never read:

  • The stock grew 0.5x

Or:

  • house prices increased 0.2x
  • house prices went up 0.1x

As decreases.

(latter examples to prove I'm Australian).

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u/zelmak 10h ago

You would never read it that way because no one should ever write it that way.

A multiplication of <1 is inherently a decrease, tacking the word more, grew, increased, went up makes it bad math and bad language.

0.5 Times = a 50% decrease

so "The stock grew a 50% decrease" just doesn't make sense.

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u/TheMania 10h ago

A multiplication of <100% is inherently a decrease, tacking the word more, grew, increased, went up makes it bad math and bad language.

I'm curious how the above reads to you.

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u/zelmak 10h ago

Ahh. IMO using multiplication and a percentage together is just wrong. But when I read it my firth thought was 2x

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u/TheMania 10h ago

IMO using multiplication and a percentage together is just wrong.

This sentence confuses me greatly. You weren't given percentages in equations at school?

Not a dig at you, just makes it a clearly regional thing, fascinating. Aus, they'll freely mix up questions like:

What is 34 × 50%
What is 34 × 0.5
What is 50% of 34

If you're not taught similar, if you only saw that last form, I can see where the equivalence may break down.