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I think the author is either being disingenuous or doesn’t understand the subject if they don’t honestly address the reason radians are used in the first place.
by ethanlipson 1mo ago
I think the author is either being disingenuous or doesn’t understand the subject if they don’t honestly address the reason radians are used in the first place. I’m leaning towards the latter, because I can’t imagine someone having an ulterior motive for pushing for trig reform like this, lol. Radians really are the natural unit for trigonometry. With that said, I certainly agree that a lot of code would be simplified by using turns over radians, especially outside the context of numerical methods. I could see myself supporting the addition of sint(x) and cost(x) functions to the math standard library, where sint = “sine turns”.
While not a strict rule, Chesterton’s fence is a good heuristic: before we change something, we should first attempt to understand why it is the way it is.
- teo_zero 1mo agoYou might have misunderstood TFA. No push for trig reform, just a consideration on what internal representation is optimal in code. Imagine it like someone suggesting (understandably) that you express memory sizes in hex: no push to make everybody stop using decimal numbers!
- ethanlipson 1mo agoTFA states “the less tau and pi, the better” and calls the radian-oriented functions “legacy”. I understand that a title like “Turns are Better than Radians” is intentionally inflammatory to get clicks, but I’d expect a more calibrated take in the article body. Phrasing like the above indicates the author doesn’t know what they’re talking about, even though I do agree turn-oriented functions would be useful.
- srean 1mo ago> Radians really are the natural unit for trigonometry. s/trigonometry/calculus