Re: [boost] Preview 3 of the Geometry Library

Subject: Re: [boost] Preview 3 of the Geometry Library
From: Michael Marcin (mike.marcin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-17 12:46:15

Mathias Gaunard wrote:
> Simonson, Lucanus J wrote:
>> Bruno wrote:
>>> Indeed it's something that should be done, we had a quick discussion
>>> about that with Barend and decided to postpone that for now. This kind
>>> of subject is never easy. For example, I'd like to rename circle into
>>> hypersphere or nsphere, but then we'll also have to clarify the
>>> meaning of some algorithms. For example what we currently call the
>>> area of a circle is actually the volume of an hypershere<2>...
>>
>> My preference would be to have a circle data type, a sphere data type
>> and a hypersphere data type.  Only the hypersphere would be
>> parameterized on dimension.  The user would pick the object that is
>> named for what they want.  If a user wants a circle they are going to be
>> frustrated and confounded that we provide them nsphere<2>.
> 
> circle would just be a typedef for nsphere<2>.
> Still, that has issues, since you will only be able to use that in 2D 
> space. So if you want to use a 'circle' in 3D, it won't work, since it 
> needs to know in which plan the circle is.
> 

Do you mean typedef in the literal sense? I thought these were 
structures were supposed to work with multiple data types. Template 
typedefs aren't available until C++0x. Is this library still targeting 
the current standard? I'm a bit confused.

Thanks,

-- 
Michael Marcin