NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Nautical Almac Question
From: hellos
Date: 2006 May 31, 15:49 -0500
Dan-
<Why not just use a negative sign like everybody else does??? >
A VERY BAD IDEA. Flyspecks get lost.
A friend of mine once spent three days tearing his hair out, trying to
troubleshoot a C program. He couldn't, because C uses operators like - and . and
he simply didn't see a . that was printed very lightly on a page, whcih changed
the whole thing.
While "web printing" may be perfect every time (or sometimes not<G>) using small
characters that often break up, or go unnoticed, simply due to a bad printing
job, makes them very dangerous. Yes, even with the best of printing presses a -
sign can simply not appear on one page in one place.
But, you have a valid point. Using a shade is UNintuitive and makes things
harder for the 99.9999% of the time when the minus sign woudl print and be
interpreted correctly. An information graphics professional, or a prepress
professional, would probably print them with the minus sign, AND use the shading
to make certain it didn't get lost. Or follow accounting conventions, where
agian, the minus sign is often deemed too easy to be missed, and overstrikes,
brackets, and other conventions used to make sure the reader knows the number is
a negative.
But the US Government Printing Office? I suspect either the "we've always done
it this way" bureaucratic mindset makes this unlikely, or they just don't pay
enough to get real talent working for them. You never know though, if you
suggest this to them they might just make it happen! Really great design takes
work, it rarely just happens perfectly on the first pass.<G>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
From: hellos
Date: 2006 May 31, 15:49 -0500
Dan-
<Why not just use a negative sign like everybody else does??? >
A VERY BAD IDEA. Flyspecks get lost.
A friend of mine once spent three days tearing his hair out, trying to
troubleshoot a C program. He couldn't, because C uses operators like - and . and
he simply didn't see a . that was printed very lightly on a page, whcih changed
the whole thing.
While "web printing" may be perfect every time (or sometimes not<G>) using small
characters that often break up, or go unnoticed, simply due to a bad printing
job, makes them very dangerous. Yes, even with the best of printing presses a -
sign can simply not appear on one page in one place.
But, you have a valid point. Using a shade is UNintuitive and makes things
harder for the 99.9999% of the time when the minus sign woudl print and be
interpreted correctly. An information graphics professional, or a prepress
professional, would probably print them with the minus sign, AND use the shading
to make certain it didn't get lost. Or follow accounting conventions, where
agian, the minus sign is often deemed too easy to be missed, and overstrikes,
brackets, and other conventions used to make sure the reader knows the number is
a negative.
But the US Government Printing Office? I suspect either the "we've always done
it this way" bureaucratic mindset makes this unlikely, or they just don't pay
enough to get real talent working for them. You never know though, if you
suggest this to them they might just make it happen! Really great design takes
work, it rarely just happens perfectly on the first pass.<G>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
