[boost] Re: two_pi or pi_twice?

From: Alisdair Meredith (alisdair.meredith_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-23 17:05:23

Matthias Troyer wrote:

> While I understand the logic behind this, the use of the phrase "two
> pi" is so common in the physics community that I don't see anybody ever
> using a library constant called "pi_twice". I would rather write 2*pi
> which is better readable. Thus, even if there turns out to be a
> consensus for a standard notation starting with the symbol name I would
> strongly urge to keep "two_pi" in addition as a special case.

I really like the pi_ convention as a general scheme, it makes it pretty
easy to work out the name of the constant without referring to help
files.  I also like your point about well-known names in use.

I suspect the number of 'well-known' names is substantially less than
the number of 'formulaic' names that will be generated.  Is there any
problem with maintaining a set of synonmyms, so that two_pi is defined
in terms of pi_twice etc?  [Apart from assembling the exhaustive list of
special cases <g>]

-- 
AlisdairM
Team Thai Kingdom