> On Jul 1, 2016, at 10:05 AM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution > <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: > > >> On Jul 1, 2016, at 6:12 AM, Björn Forster via swift-evolution >> <swift-evolution@swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org>> wrote: >> >> In SE-0067: Enhanced Floating Point Protocols >> <https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0067-floating-point-protocols.md> >> 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 > <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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