We know what an 0805 is and don't give a crap it is
vaguely related to imperial measurements but now we have to know a 2012
vaguely related to metric measurements is also an 0805.
Cool. I didn't know the SMT size names well, I very rarely work with
anything SMT. That example you decribed is nice, it helps a lot. Nothing to
complain about at all. From that I deduced that this size must be 2.0 mm
long and 1.2(5) mm wide, or 0.08" long and 0.05" wide. So two neatly
detailed ways to say the same thing, given that no-one's going to worry
much about the presence or absence of the 0.05"
Mechanical engineers find lots of reasons to mix metric and imperial, it
solves more problems than it creates.
So long as we know which is being specified, and so long as the actual
number of parts sizes doesn't proliferate too much, SMT should be usable
even to me. My problem with it has nothing to do with size, it's that no
standard stripboard or similar solution can apply, it's never possible to
develop a board without going the full way to finished product just to test
an itial layout! That's a far worse problem thast worrying about number
conversions. I keep those in my head for inch/mm scales, but I don't have
the same convenient access to a board fabricator.
