Re: [boost] Quantity libraries: SIunits

From: George A. Heintzelman (georgeh_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-09-10 11:28:56

> I believe that this is definitely the system to go for.  It meets all
> reasonable needs, except ... [MSVC]

I disagree with this characterization of SIunits. First, let me say 
that I'm impressed with SIunits as it stands. It is a great package, 
and I think it's definitely an excellent base to work from.

But, SIunits was designed by a scientist for dealing with unit problems 
in scientific programs, and it shows. For example, in the business 
domain where I currently hang my hat, I don't see how the SIunits 
package helps people who need to deal with currencies, or 
weights/measures of particular materials/classes of objects (commodity 
prices, for example -- I would love to have a package which prevented 
me from multiplying the price for a contract for pork bellies with a 
number of bushels of wheat to get a dollar result). Even within the 
scientific domain, I don't see how to make SIunits detect errors in 
degrees/radians/arcseconds measure (well, maybe I do, but I think it 
has other undesireable consequences for other dimensionless quantities).

I think one can reasonably expect a units package to meet those needs, 
and I think the problems are soluble. I hope that SIunits' author will 
be willing to work with boost to address these sorts of problems as we 
move from a specifically SIUnits package to a more general 
quantity/units library.

George Heintzelman
georgeh_at_[hidden]