Re: Integral types and own type definitions (was Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?)

On 3/27/25 14:31, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

On 2025-03-27, James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:

On 3/26/25 05:59, Keith Thompson wrote:

David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
[...]

Sure. But most people have forgotten such details long ago - negative
numbers are not part of daily life (except as an indicator of how much
you owe the bank...). After all, negative numbers are not natural!

>
Most people understand credits and debits.

From my experience, most do not. In particular, if you gave them
examples of a transaction and the relevant accounts, they would have no
idea which accounts should be debited, and which should be credited.

>
Or, well, they would know because the transaction would say so.

"Make a $1,000 payment from the checking account on the mortgage"
describes the transaction, but most people who aren't familiar with
accounting terms, would have trouble when reading that description
deciding whether the checking account should be credited with $1,000, or
debited, and similarly for the Mortgage.

It will always be a debit/credit pair identifying the accounts.
>
What they wouldn't necessarily know is whether they are supposed to add
the credit or subtract it from the given account, and likewise
for debit.

That's what I meant when I said, they wouldn't know whether to credit or
debit the relevant accounts. For instance, Cash is a debit-positive
account, so a debit to Cash increases the balance, and a credit to Cash
decreases the balance. It's exactly the opposite for a credit-positive
account, such as your balance on a debt that you owe. I get the
impression that you're unfamiliar with the use of "credit" and "debit"
as verbs in this context, which is just another example of the problem.

It might seem that just keeping track of positive and negative would be
simpler, but all I can say is that if you took the time to study
accounting in detail (which I would not recommend unless you have a
practical use for the information), it would eventually become clear why
the credit/debit approach is better.