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From: "Steve Doiel" <nospam_steved@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Comments at the End of Lines
Date: 1999/07/03
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[snip]
>
>One problem that I have with your declaration up there is that you move
from
>inches to feet. If your lengths are in inches, why are your areas not in
>inches? I would think it funny to see an area function that looked like
>this:
>
>-- linear values are in inches, area returned in sq. ft.
>function Area(L: Float, W: Float) return Float is
>begin
>    return ((L * W) / 144); -- must convert after calculation
>end Area;
>
>Rather, I would imagine that you would normally do it like this:
>
>function Area(L: Float, W: Float) return Float is
>begin
>    return L * W;
>end Area;
>
I agree that it seems odd that length is maintained in inches while area is
maintained in square feet.  But in certain industries this as a "standard"
convention.

BTW: I didn't really want to get into it with regard to the placement of
comments but what is perhaps a better answer to the unit question is to
declare different types for each unit and provide overloaded math functions
that implicitly convert dimensions.

SteveD