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We're developing an international product that displays a ruler to the user. Now in Germany and many other countries its of course common to use the metric system: cm or mm.

I'm aware that americans and canadians (and maybe others too) do still use inches, feet and yards.

So the question is: will todays americans (and other inch-country-citizens) understand the metric system and take it for granted - or do they still love their inches so much that they'd rather die than use a product with incorrect measurements? ( sorry for being blunt ;) )

TylerH
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gamma
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    Is this really a programming question? – unwind Mar 18 '10 at 10:17
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    Not necessarily - but still somehow it is. Our developers asked for a "vote" - there are other experienced developers here who may have decided for one or the other - so I ask them for advice – gamma Mar 18 '10 at 10:23
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not a programming question. – NobodyNada Jan 07 '17 at 00:07
  • Seriously? This thing is 6y old. The reasons for opening it at a dev forum are still valid I guess. – gamma Jan 09 '17 at 06:01
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    It caught attention because somebody found the question and posted a new answer; that puts it back on top of the Active list. As time goes on, the site has gotten more obsessed with being strictly about programming, if you can't answer with code then someone will call it off-topic. Your question is really more about culture. The one time I worked on an app with a ruler, we had a preference setting for which units to use. – Mark Ransom Jan 09 '17 at 15:04

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One thing is certain : which units are used must be obvious in the interface any place where you show a dimension (aka avoid the excel set column / row size dialog with no unit).

I also guess that alas you'll have to handle both systems. Some americans know about the metric system but not all of them. And even the ones who understand it don't necessary love it.

What I would do : default to metric system but provide some options to change it ...

siukurnin
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  • This seems to be the best suggestions - I asked our developers about it and they prefer to set the measurements depending on the client locale/country. In addition we will display the current settings on the ruler. – gamma Mar 18 '10 at 10:39
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The only places yet to adopt the metric system are USA, Burma and Liberia. I think that in these places, people would love to have the English measurements as their default. I don't think USA citizens are comfortable enough with the metric system to actually use it (with exception to engineers and scientists).

M.A. Hanin
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In Canada we do not use inches or yards at all. We occasionally use feet, but only because one foot is almost exactly 30 cm (one ruler).

Isabella
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  • 30.48 cm by my calculations; that's 1.6% off, which I guess is good enough for casual use. Thanks for that tidbit, even if it is totally not helpful in answering the question. – Mark Ransom Jan 09 '17 at 14:59