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Old 02-14-2011, 11:33 PM   #1
catkin
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HCL "Price paid" and internationalisation


Hello :-)

Is there any way or need to internationalise the HCL's "Price paid" field? How about free text?

The question arises because I bought hardware in India and naturally paid in INR. Knowing that would not be meaningful to many LQ users, I also gave an approximate conversion into USD which most users will be able to convert. It would have been misleading to give the price in USD because hardware is generally more expensive in India than in USA because of taxes and discounting.

Best

Charles
 
Old 02-15-2011, 12:14 AM   #2
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Definitely sounds like a good idea to use international currencies for prices in the HCL, because as you said, currencies don't always exchange right. Trying to convert a pound, euro, yen, rupee, or won to a dollar is a real pain, because there are sometimes irrational numbers involved.
 
Old 02-15-2011, 02:57 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn View Post
irrational numbers
Nice one
 
Old 02-15-2011, 06:39 AM   #4
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I usually use www.xe.com to get an idea of the amounts. It produces a result to 4 decimal places, but the rounding up/down is normally trivial. It should also be noted that if the hardware is not listed immediately, depreciation will make the value change. If you are looking to buy any of the listed hardware, shop around as prices will vary. The amount on the HCL is merely there to give an indication of what members have spent, rather than telling you what you should expect to spend.
 
Old 02-15-2011, 09:10 AM   #5
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Listing the price paid per country in localized currency really isn't feasible unfortunately. Even within a single country prices will vary quite significantly, so the price paid really should just be seen as a rough estimate. It's possible we'll simply remove the number if it's not proving useful. Thanks for the feedback.

--jeremy
 
Old 02-15-2011, 11:37 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremy View Post
Listing the price paid per country in localized currency really isn't feasible unfortunately. Even within a single country prices will vary quite significantly, so the price paid really should just be seen as a rough estimate. It's possible we'll simply remove the number if it's not proving useful. Thanks for the feedback.

--jeremy
Understood. Would it be practicable to make it a free text field so the likes of "INR 2500 (USD ~40)" would be accepted?
 
Old 02-15-2011, 02:15 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catkin View Post
Understood. Would it be practicable to make it a free text field so the likes of "INR 2500 (USD ~40)" would be accepted?
Not really, as there'd be no sensible way to aggregate the data (which is really the form it's most useful).

--jeremy
 
Old 02-15-2011, 03:21 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn View Post
Trying to convert a pound, euro, yen, rupee, or won to a dollar is a real pain, because there are sometimes irrational numbers involved.
Can you show us an example?
 
Old 02-17-2011, 09:16 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremy View Post
Not really, as there'd be no sensible way to aggregate the data (which is really the form it's most useful).

--jeremy
OK, that makes sense but does require us to all enter the same currency in which case an instructive note saying so might help ...
 
Old 02-17-2011, 09:25 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by catkin View Post
OK, that makes sense but does require us to all enter the same currency in which case an instructive note saying so might help ...
Updated to say "Price you paid? (in USD)".

--jeremy
 
Old 02-17-2011, 09:36 AM   #11
catkin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeremy View Post
Updated to say "Price you paid? (in USD)".

--jeremy
You're so quick, Jeremy
 
Old 02-17-2011, 06:19 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dugan View Post
Can you show us an example?
Basically the same as the difference between a meter and a foot. Trying to convert them is insane, because the decimal that results from the conversion is neither terminating nor repeating, like pi for instance.
 
Old 02-17-2011, 06:58 PM   #13
dugan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn View Post
Basically the same as the difference between a meter and a foot. Trying to convert them is insane, because the decimal that results from the conversion is neither terminating nor repeating, like pi for instance.
If you end up with a such a number, then the normal procedure is to round it after a predetermined number of decimal places. Hardly "insane."

However, multiplying or dividing a number by 3.2808 (which, according to the Wikipedia article on "meter", is the conversion factor between meters and feet) does not give you an irrational number. While it's occurred to me that this value is rounded, I could not find any references saying that the more precise value is irrational.

What am I missing?

Last edited by dugan; 02-17-2011 at 08:35 PM.
 
Old 02-18-2011, 06:36 AM   #14
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And there was me thinking that Kenny_Strawn was wittily referring to the irrationality of currency exchange rates, not irrational numbers!
 
Old 02-18-2011, 06:50 AM   #15
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Hopefully, none of the numbers found on the HCL price list will be irrational numbers. Any of the currency conversions can be done as long as you round the decimals to 2 places, which is trivial and can be done by anyone with more than one maths lesson in decimals.
 
  


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