Re: [swift-evolution] Besides pi, include also e as a builtin mathematical constant into floats

[Stephen Canon via swift-evolution]

> On Jul 1, 2016, at 2:33 PM, David Waite via swift-evolution 
>  wrote:
> 
> That only is about tau, which is a much more controversial operator. 
> Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the discussion of pi or E in the 
> archives (but neither pi nor e are very searchable)

https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20160411/015021.html

> In general, the line for mathematical functions appears to have been set 
> pretty high for inclusion in SE-0067, focusing instead on IEEE 754 
> capabilities and general design/naming. There are a number of features 
> missing from a standard math library such as the ability to do trigonometric 
> and hyperbolic operations, exponential and logarithmic operations, and so on. 
> I am not sure what criteria determined where this line was drawn. I suspect 
> it was trying to get to a point of just additive changes.

That’s exactly right.

I expect that math functions and constants will eventually make up a math 
protocol, separate from FloatingPoint.  For the short-term, that niche is 
filled by the C standard library.  `pi` is so frequently used that we made an 
exception for it.

– Steve___
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Re: [swift-evolution] Besides pi, include also e as a builtin mathematical constant into floats

[David Waite via swift-evolution]

> On Jul 1, 2016, at 10:05 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution 
> > wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:12 AM, Björn Forster via swift-evolution 
>> > wrote:
>> 
>> In SE-0067: Enhanced Floating Point Protocols 
>> 
>>  is stated that pi will be a built in constant from Swift 3 onwards.
>> Is there a specific reason why pi as a constant will be included but not e? 
>> e is also ubiquitous in scientific, engineering and economic calculations. I 
>> seems odd to me to include pi but then not e as well. Also Python provides 
>> both pi and e. Shouldn't Swift provide also at least both pi and e as 
>> constants for its floating point types?
>> It is also not nice if different numerical packages for swift will come up 
>> all with their own different definitions of e. I think Swift 3 should use 
>> the opportunity to get this thing right from the beginning and provided both 
>> pi AND e.
>> 
>> Is there a new proposal necessary to still get e as a built in constant into 
>> Swift 3?
> 
> I think this thread will answer that question for you:
> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.swift.evolution/22200/focus=22466 
> 
That only is about tau, which is a much more controversial operator. 
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the discussion of pi or E in the archives 
(but neither pi nor e are very searchable)

In general, the line for mathematical functions appears to have been set pretty 
high for inclusion in SE-0067, focusing instead on IEEE 754 capabilities and 
general design/naming. There are a number of features missing from a standard 
math library such as the ability to do trigonometric and hyperbolic operations, 
exponential and logarithmic operations, and so on. I am not sure what criteria 
determined where this line was drawn. I suspect it was trying to get to a point 
of just additive changes.

But for all I know, pi may have been included just so that people didn’t use π 
in math extension libraries ;-)

-DW



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Re: [swift-evolution] Besides pi, include also e as a builtin mathematical constant into floats

[Erica Sadun via swift-evolution]

> On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:12 AM, Björn Forster via swift-evolution 
>  wrote:
> 
> In SE-0067: Enhanced Floating Point Protocols 
> 
>  is stated that pi will be a built in constant from Swift 3 onwards.
> Is there a specific reason why pi as a constant will be included but not e? e 
> is also ubiquitous in scientific, engineering and economic calculations. I 
> seems odd to me to include pi but then not e as well. Also Python provides 
> both pi and e. Shouldn't Swift provide also at least both pi and e as 
> constants for its floating point types? 
> It is also not nice if different numerical packages for swift will come up 
> all with their own different definitions of e. I think Swift 3 should use the 
> opportunity to get this thing right from the beginning and provided both pi 
> AND e. 
> 
> Is there a new proposal necessary to still get e as a built in constant into 
> Swift 3? 

I think this thread will answer that question for you:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.swift.evolution/22200/focus=22466

> This was discussed as part of SE-0067.
> 
> The consensus was that pi deserved special treatment, as it is used in 
> general-purpose code an order of magnitude more often than the all other 
> constants combined.  I don’t think that anyone argued against it’s inclusion.
> – Steve

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