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From: Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@crs4.it>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: Macks - adding unit constants?
Date: Mon, 03 Nov 2003 12:45:49 +0100
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Preben Randhol wrote:
> On 2003-10-17, Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@crs4.it> wrote:

>>It is very impractical to have to remember to write "0.000_86" and not 
>>"0.86", when you put constants in your code.  I prefer to have to write 
>>"0.000_86 * m" (or "0.86 * mm") so there is an explicit conversion from 
>>nondimensional to dimensional units.  Since this preference is rather 
>>strong, I have decided to use a hand-written units package for this project.
> 
> why not 8.6E-4 ?

As opposed to what?  It still doesn't tell which units we are working
in.  Dimensionless numbers should not be able to suddenly become
dimensioned numbers without som kind of explicit conversion.

And I have made too many mistakes which could have been caught by proper
handling of dimensioned numbers to make me want to take chances.

Jacob
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