Progress Software Corporation (Progress) is a multinational company that provides software for developing and deploying business applications. I came across one of their sample applications that uses dual temperature measurements and wondered why it uses two temperature scales when one would be enough. I asked Progress about this. Read on to find out their response to my query.
Dual measurements in software are one of the hidden costs of running a dual measurement system because they create extra work and cost more to develop. So, I asked Progress about their use of dual temperature measures in their sample application, writing:
“When a developer creates a new Telerik® C# Blazor application, a weather forecasting sample application is provided. I know that it is meant to help developers to write new Blazor applications by providing examples. I noticed that the WeatherForecast class contains properties for the Celsius and Fahrenheit temperature scales. It is unnecessary to use two temperature scales to tell users the temperature. The use of dual measurements in applications creates extra work for no obvious benefit. It is easier and simpler to use one measurement scale and is faster to develop. I would like to know why you include two temperature scales in your sample application instead of one. Most countries use Celsius. It is mainly the Americans who use Fahrenheit.”
Progress replied to me to explain the reason for the use of dual temperatures:
“I’ve received your inquiry around our Blazor samples and please be advised that those are demos used to showcase what can be done with the controls and stand as a fundamental to build upon for new users.
In your own application, you may decide to use only Celsius as a temperature measurement, but other apps might require showing the same in both Celsius and Fahrenheit.
While this might not seem relevant for you, please note that about 60% of our user base is located in the US and thus we want to ensure that there’s relevancy in the information for everyone looking at our controls.”
It is understandable that Progress wants to cater for their American and international customers. The former tend to use Fahrenheit while the latter tend to use Celsius. Obviously, they do not want to alienate a big chunk of their customer base, so they use both temperature scales in their sample applications to show what their products can do. However, the use of dual measurement units in applications to measure the same thing is one of the hidden costs of running a dual measurement system.
It would be ideal if the Americans switch to the Celsius scale and the British kill off the use of Fahrenheit. Then we can all benefit from using a single temperature scale and save money on software development costs, which are ultimately paid by customers.
Metric Views 
You may be interested to use Google ngram viewer. This can show often each temperature scale is mentioned in English versions of Google books. For example:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28Celsius%2B°C%29%2C%28Fahrenheit%2B°F%29&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
For guidance on how to use it, see ‘About Ngram Viewer’ at the bottom left of the page.
LikeLike
careless conversions can cause problems.
Consider the sequence
… 0°C, 1°C, 2°C, 3°C, 4°C and 5°C.
Convert this to Fahrenheit to the same accuracy. We get
… 32°F,34°F, 36°F, 37°F, 39°F and 41°F.
Note, in Fahrenheit there are 3 consecutive even numbers followed by 3 consecutive odd numbers. If we were to extend this sequence over a much larger range, we would find a sequence with the five consecutive Fahrenheit even values followed by five Fahrenheit odd values and then five even numbers and so on. Plotting one against the other, there would be a discontinuity every five readings (unless one rounded the Fahrenheit reading to one decimal place, in which case we would get the sequence
… 32.0°F, 33.8°F, 35.6°F, 37.4°F, 39.2°F, 41.0°F
This, if the measurements were only made to the nearest degree Celsius, clearly gives a false sense of accuracy. Working the other way, we would always get a slight blip, depending on the number of decimal places used.
At school (in South Africa), I was taught “Ek moenie my languages mix nie”. I suppose that the equivalent phrase in and English school would be “Je ne pa mix mon languages”.
LikeLike
In general, the BBC _has_ killed off °F, apart from a few renegades who insist on inserting a random Fahrenheit equivalent. That leaves me (at 77+) asking myself, “For whom is she (and it is generally one of the female forecasters) doing that?” I have not yet discovered the answer.
What I find more disturbing and annoying is that the weather forecast – all °C, metres and mm – is generally followed by BBC News, when rainfall is quoted in inches. Heights in metres are, as often as not, converted to feet. Temperatures, again to my annoyance, are often referred to as “Centigrade”. After sixty years!
Notwithstanding, I’ve also noticed a gradual increase in the use of metres in general news reporting. Praise God for little things!
LikeLike
Mizeki,
I think if you took a survey in newly metric English speaking countries, you would find that the majority, maybe 90 % plus, of women versus men oppose the use of the metric system and refuse to use it no matter what. There may be places where they can’t resist, such as on the job, but if they can, they will. I’m sure there may be some exceptions to this, but very few.
As proof, resistance appears to be high in the market place, especially when you have to ask for an amount at the deli counter. Thus the main reason for pound pricing. Of course, they can’t do much about the amounts on prepackage labels, but if they could, they would. Women also describe new baby’s weight in pounds and ounces and pass this practice down to their daughters. After 50 years, they refuse to learn baby’s masses in kilograms even when it is the only way the baby’s mass is determined. How many female nurses would ever tell a patient their mass in kilograms?
Go to any metric forum and you will find virtually zero female contributors. How many female posters are there on Metric Views? I would be interested if one of the presenters here on Metric Views would do some research on this and make it a topic of discussion.
So, it is no surprise that BBC female presenters go out of their way to avoid using metric units.
LikeLike
I guess progress is what you make it …
A rather stupid reply from the company, first it is anti progress, second if just one unit of temperature were used then the ‘learner’ could choose between using ‘C’ or ‘F’, the rest would come about in the data programming figures.
Either way, obviously a programme to be avoided and I would take a guess it would be a ‘Windows only’ application! No, I do not need to know.
LikeLike
Ronnie wrote: “It would be ideal if the Americans switch to the Celsius scale…”.
The USA is in transition to Celsius just like the UK and Canada. Each country is just at a different point in the transition, depending on the domain. For example, aviation reports in the USA were in Fahrenheit till mid-1996 but then switched to Celsius. See: https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12926
LikeLike
@Terry
Sadly, from the cockpit the pilot or co-pilot on flights in the USA always announce the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit. In everyday life here in the USA everything is US Customary. 😦
LikeLike
The response from Progress® is perfectly reasonable. There is still a demand for Farenheit, especially from the USA, and Progress®, as a business, provides for it – just as it provides for exclusively metric quantities for those that want them.
The issues, then, are the hidden costs. For instance, before sale of groceries in the UK became compulsory in metric, weighing machines were calibrated in pounds and ounces and half ounces and even quarter ounces. To do this digitally must have been much more complicated than digital readout of decimal quantities. There would have been some cost of conversion but saving since then in simplified design of weighing devices.
Another issue is source of error. We heard recently of the customer who was overcharged threefold for gas supply, because the meter measured in cubic feet but the bill was calculated as though it was cubic metres. Once, when I was performing some freelance programming, I was invited by a scrap dealer to enhance some software regulating sales. Conversations with various people indicated that it was converting incorrectly from pounds weight to kilograms, and the dealer was “making” on the sale. I examined the program and found a single line that divided the weight in pounds by 2.2 for kilograms. The figure, which was hard coded, should have been more like 2.2048. Two-figure accuracy is simply not good enough for trading. So the coded conversion produced an error in favour of the dealer.
There are still quite a number of gas meters recording cubic feet in use, and they will not disappear overnight. The error in the case cited above was very large and noticeable. A small error due to an innacurate figure is not readily noticeable, but accumulative. It is pity that progress in the USA towards metrication is slow, but we can’t tell the Americans how to run their country.
LikeLike
@Metricmac
Unfortunately, even Americans can’t seem to be able to say how to run our own country. (See the latest state of the House of Representatives or the massive gerrymandering of Congressional and state district election maps in the various Republican states). No chance of any more metrication with that crowd in charge, I’m afraid
LikeLike
@Metricmac 2023-10-30 at 09:14
Very interesting about those gas meters. I read the article at the time, if that were true the charges would be 35 times greater, not 3. That would definitely notice quite quickly. I would guess a wrong conversion of square measure was used rather than cubic measure, the gas company lied about their stupidity and the media lapped it up. It is still a case of the old meter, but the real issue is conversion error, not the meters.
LikeLike
Imperial gas meter readings are recorded in units of 100 ft³, as opposed to units of 1 m³ for metric meters (100 ft³ being approximately 3 m³). The conversion factor used by gas suppliers is 2.83.
I still have an imperial gas meter. On my bills, meter readings are multiplied by 2.83 to convert them to m³, before the amount of energy used in kW h is calculated.
Underpayment errors can occur if a gas supplier’s records show that a meter is metric when it is actually imperial, and overpayment errors can occur if a metric meter is recorded as being imperial.
Reports of these sort of errors were more common when fewer people had smart meters.
Click to access open_letter_to_gas_suppliers_on_metricimperial_indicator_charging_error.pdf
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2032011/imperial-metric-gas-meter-errors
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-3741205/Thousands-customers-money-energy-firms-mix-imperial-metric-gas-meters-affected.html
LikeLike
Ofgem wrote to suppliers in 2016 (see link below). Part of it said:
“The issue is a result of a mismatch between the unit (metric or imperial) the meter is measuring gas consumption in, and the unit (metric or imperial) recorded in suppliers’ back office systems. The mismatch leads to either a significant undercharge or significant overcharge to the customer for their gas consumption as a result of the conversion factor between imperial and metric measurements.”
Click to access open_letter_to_gas_suppliers_on_metricimperial_indicator_charging_error.pdf
LikeLike
@Terry 2023-12-07 at 13:29
A very interesting and revealing document. “we are making sure suppliers take immediate and
decisive action to identify affected customers”, really, so why 7 years latter are the same issues being discussed?
Now it is not as if this some strange space age anomaly cropping up once in a lifetime, this is a known, predictable, recorded (meter S/N etc) and totally preventable failing.
For any meter replaced in the last 50-60 years the metering units of old and replacement meters should surely be noted and the correct (if any) conversion factors applied. If not why not?
Personally I think the fact that duplication is not considered to be a problem, to the point of total complacency and thus to a total apathy towards the issue. Further, it seems always the end user loses out, not the perpetrator of the incident.
Even here posters seem to accept dual units (factually triple units) as quite normal to the point that errors are somehow down to the stupidity of the end user (me).
“Don’t duel with dual” has always been my opinion, there is no need to do so, nothing to gain by doing so, no point in doing so and everything to lose by doing so. Eliminate dual units at every level, USA aside, there is no need in any other place in the universe. Some where some time (several times) it will come back and bite you for sure.
Sorry if this is a bit outside the original article, but software enabling of this ridiculous practice is the very reason we have this complacency, easy to convert = easy to make mistakes without any thought of consequences.
LikeLiked by 1 person