Tim Bray wrote:
> At 12:14 PM 3/29/00 +0930, Andrew Fellows wrote:
> >I can not believe how seriously this topic is being treated. In my opinion,
> >anyone who needs to use physical models, understand and use mathemtical
> >concepts such as rotation and translation should understand the need for
> >radians, degrees is eye candy for those people who actually need to see
> >something ......
>
> Gimme a break. Speaking from behind the shield of my long-disused
> math degree, I see no actual practical advantages to the use of radians;
> lemme see, sin(x) approaches x as x approaches 0 (in radians)... anything
> else? Degrees are immensely more human-friendly and it would have been
> better if the libraries had worked in the same terms that humans do.
I think this is the central issue here but from a technical viewpoint I simply
don't see the validity ... so you say degrees are more friendly ... so 12
seconds of arc are more friendly than the equivalent radian measure ... you
really think so ?
>From the pratical point of view .. it's nice to see a number and know that I
don't have to multiply this bit by 60 and this bit by ....etc..... 3.14159
radians is simply that .... if that same number is presented as degrees then
you would have to do calculations to get the minutes and seconds ....... so
pratically speaking there are many advantages .. no conversions .. number is a
number .. don't have to worry about someone taking short cuts with the
format...it's quicker......it's more in line with the maths.
>
> But having said all that the libraries are in radians and so J3D might
> as well be too, in most cases you're not going to be exposing the numeric
> angular measures to users anyhow, so why the fuss? -T.
>
indeed.
Andrew Fellows
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