[jcgrillo]

> tenths and hundredths of an inch "don't mean anything" because we don't divide inches that way in common use

Architectural rulers tend to divide inches into tenths for some reason. I have no idea why, because lumber comes in multiples of 12 (e.g. 8', 10', 12', 16') so if you design in multiples of 10 you're likely to waste a lot. If anyone knows I'd be curious to hear about it, mostly it makes drawing things to scale a pain in my ass..

[sokoloff]

Somewhat ironically, it's to make architects' jobs easier when they're drawing things to <architectural> scale.

If you're making a floor plan drawing at 1:100, a 240 inch wall becomes 2.4 inches on the drawing. The scales [of the drawings] and the scales [the tools] evolved together. (Similar to "why do computer people work in base 2 or base 16 so often?")

[jcgrillo]

Makes sense, I'll try to work in whole number scaled inches more (although tbh I'm just being picky, eyeballing the fractional part is usually good enough).