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0 pointsdoodlesdev3y ago0 comments

I have no idea where all of you got the idea that percentages go up to 100. It's in the name: PER centage, meaning x/100 [0].

For instance if you want 20% that could also be expressed as a fraction such as 20/100, which turns out is the same as 2/10 or 0.2.

I do think they should remove the redundant statements in the conditions and also have an assertion that guarantees percentage to be [0, 1].

> The term "percent" is derived from the Latin per centum, meaning "hundred" or "by the hundred". The sign for "percent" evolved by gradual contraction of the Italian term per cento, meaning "for a hundred". The "per" was often abbreviated as "p."—eventually disappeared entirely. The "cento" was contracted to two circles separated by a horizontal line, from which the modern "%" symbol is derived.

This might be a little more obvious for me since my first language is derived from Latin, but anyhow it still keeps the meaning in english.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage

0 comments

rsynnott3y ago

20 percent means, literally, 20 per hundred; it's equivalent to 0.2 or 2/10 or 1/5 or whatever, of course, but if `percentage==0.2` then that fairly clearly, on the face of it, should mean "0.2 per hundred", ie 0.2% or 0.002.

doodlesdevOP3y ago

It really shouldn't. 20% means _literally_ 20 / 100 so if you need to express that numerically (as you do in code since % is reserved for modulo) you write that as 0.2. That is still a percentage, just in numerical decimal form instead of in the form of a fraction, the value is exactly the same and it didn't stop being a percentage.

If I write 0.2 in a piece of paper and give it to someone and tell them that's a percentage it should be pretty obvious that means it's 20%. If you do the same but you write 0.2% then of course it's 0.2%.

If they really wanted to they could've written the comparison using the numbers as fractions in the comparisons such as percentage < 10/100 which would be perfectly reasonable, but again, that resolves to 0.1, so you might as well right it in decimal form already.

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