RE: [boost] Re: Math constants - updated.

From: Paul A Bristow (pbristow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-17 06:52:20

| -----Original Message-----
| From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden] 
| [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Deane Yang
| Sent: 16 May 2005 02:37
| To: boost_at_[hidden]
| Subject: [boost] Re: Math constants - updated.

| Where is this "VIOLENT opposition" being expressed? I have never seen 
| anything of the sort on this list; I have only seen your 
| assertions that it exists. Could you elaborate?

You are obviously living in a world of 'real' programmers -
who never eat quiche!

But there is another planet on which live nearly all 'amateur' programmers,
scientists and engineers, sociologists, medics, electricians and plumbers
... me even ;-)
who, if told that pi is a function,
will assume you are joking and just head back to use a more sensible
language.

They don't read or contribute to the Boost list, let alone understand!
But they _ARE_ the 'customers'.

And I re-iterate that they do have a good point.
Equations are bracket-infested enough already.
Why is there a syntatic requirement for yet more brackets?
pi IS a constant after all.

This is why Walter Brown has proposed to change the language
to make them unnecessary, in response to his 'customers' wishes.

Don't forget too, that >95% of all use is simply a IEEE 64-bit double,
so ALL the others are corner cases.
We need to ensure that using the double case is nice and easy.
We want to avoid decorating every reference to pi with (double) or <double>
or ...
This seems to me the advantage of using namespaces - a single using
statement can fix it.
Chosing a header file double_constants.hpp also achieves this
ease_of_using_doubles.

But I have no fixed views on how to achieve this.

Paul

Paul A Bristow
Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal, Cumbria UK LA8 8AB
[phone]  [phone]
mailto: pbristow_at_[hidden]