[ruby-core:77621] Re: [Ruby trunk Feature#4897] Define Math::TAU and BigMath.TAU. The "true" circle constant, Tau=2*Pi. See http://tauday.com/

Why would someone want to use Ruby for scientific computing, when Python 
offers an awesome collection of scientific packages with first-class 
support?

Isn't Ruby supposed to be a great language for web development, and 
that's about the extent of it?

[I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here.]

Specifically, wouldn't an interconnected system of Science/Math packages 
be a more appropriate place for Mathematical and Scientific constants? 
That way, they could be organized to facilitate ease-of-use while 
eliminating redundancy. They might even be curated to avoid the prospect 
of wholesale duplicating CRC manuals in Ruby code.

Would such an interconnected system be packaged as a bunch of individual 
gems, or is there some higher-level packaging concept than the Ruby gem?

I personally think gems are best when kept as small as possible, highly 
cohesive and highly coherent. But that creates a secondary problem? How 
to organize larger units of reusable code? I don't know.


On 10/13/2016 10:12 PM, [e-mail] wrote:
> Issue #4897 has been updated by Nobuyoshi Nakada.
>
>
> At the developers' meeting this week, mrkn suggested `TWO_PI` instead.
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Feature #4897: Define Math::TAU and BigMath.TAU. The "true" circle constant, Tau=2*Pi. See http://tauday.com/
> https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/4897#change-60888
>
> * Author: Simon Baird
> * Status: Assigned
> * Priority: Normal
> * Assignee: Yukihiro Matsumoto
> ----------------------------------------
> Firstly please read the Tau Manifesto at http://tauday.com/ . It's quite long but essential to understanding why this is a good idea.
>
> Here is a patch on trunk that implements this:
> http://simonbaird.blogspot.com/2011/06/tau-in-ruby.html
>
> Allow me to anticipate and respond in advance to some common objections:
>
> 1. It's easy to define it yourself so why put this in core.
> Possibly correct, but I think this is the right thing to do. Tau is important. And it's a pretty small patch.
>
> 2. If this constant goes in then pretty soon someone will want every other math constant and there are hundreds of them. (Slippery slope argument).
> The circle constant is one of the two most important numbers is mathematics. It's not just another math constant. We already define Pi.
>
> ---Files--------------------------------
> tau.patch (1.2 KB)
> tau.patch (1.2 KB)
>
>


Unsubscribe: <mailto:[e-mail]?subject=unsubscribe>
<http://lists.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/ruby-core>