My problem is that I like having full and exact file sizes, and I like that they really make order-of-magnitude differences stand out in a listing (by taking up an extra column); but if I look at a number longer than five or so digits it's difficult to quickly see how many digits it is, and hence my quick glance can be off by an order of magnitude.
In a program that natively makes strong use of colour, though, here's an option: print exact file sizes, but in two related colours (say, bright yellow and dark yellow/brown), as follows: the first colour for the first 1, 2, or 3 digits, and the other for the remaining $n$ digits where $n$ is divisible by 3. That way the first colour will represent a whole number of KB, MB, GB, etc—and which of these it is will be very clear as it's easier to get that rough-count size—and the fainter/darker colour would give the full exact number of bytes. Best of both worlds!
Or just use ls -l --block-size=\'1 (make sure your locale is set properly). This way not only your interactive output is fixed, but also any place where it's redirected to text.
In a program that natively makes strong use of colour, though, here's an option: print exact file sizes, but in two related colours (say, bright yellow and dark yellow/brown), as follows: the first colour for the first 1, 2, or 3 digits, and the other for the remaining $n$ digits where $n$ is divisible by 3. That way the first colour will represent a whole number of KB, MB, GB, etc—and which of these it is will be very clear as it's easier to get that rough-count size—and the fainter/darker colour would give the full exact number of bytes. Best of both worlds!
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