Simen Kvaal wrote:
> 
> >A short history question: Was there a reason for using degrees with
> >rotate and radians with the trigonometric functions, or did just happen
> >that way?
> 
> I'd say it's quite natural that the _functions_ take radians as parameters,
> because in mathematics, you rarely use degrees to express angles and/or to
> perform trigonometric oerations, to put it that way.
> 
> As for the rotations, the degrees is for many a more natural and intuitive
> approach to orientation in space. You don't say "turn around pi", but "turn
> around 180 degrees." Maybe it would be natural to have alternate
> rotate-definitions, accepting radians?

It would be more natural, IMO, to have trig that accepts degrees. When I
was taking trig, we did plenty of work with degrees.. and in fact, since
we specify angles in degrees pretty much everywhere BUT in a classroom -
even my scientific calculator uses degrees by default - I don't see the
point of using radians, which almost no one is familiar with.

I don't WANT to rotate an object by 1/6th pi. I don't *NEED* to rotate
an object by 1/6th pi. But it would be nice to ask for sin(30) and get
.5 back.

(In the spirit of offering a solution, how about a "trig_units" keyword
in the global_settings, where a user could specify "degrees" or "radians"?)

-- 
Xplo Eristotle
http://start.at/xplosion/

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"
    -Pink Floyd

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