From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,1dd28d5040ded1f8 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-15 16:00:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!uunet!sea.uu.net!ash.uu.net!prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr21.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!3bae8248!not-for-mail From: tmoran@acm.org Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Announce: Grace project site operational References: <4519e058.0205150657.3b695758@posting.google.com> X-Newsreader: Tom's custom newsreader Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.112.203.7 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr21.news.prodigy.com 1021503594 ST000 67.112.203.7 (Wed, 15 May 2002 18:59:54 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 18:59:54 EDT Organization: Prodigy Internet http://www.prodigy.com X-UserInfo1: SCSYQN_@FS@[SPTX\JKXOFXBWR\HPCTL@XT^OBPLAH[\BPIB_NVUAH_[BL[\IRKIANGGJBFNJF_DOLSCENSY^U@FRFUEXR@KFXYDBPWBCDQJA@X_DCBHXR[C@\EOKCJLED_SZ@RMWYXYWE_P@\\GOIW^@SYFFSWHFIXMADO@^[ADPRPETLBJ]RDGENSKQQZN Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 22:59:54 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24134 Date: 2002-05-15T22:59:54+00:00 List-Id: > actually 7 "fundamental" units, 22 more derived units with approved > names, and a theoreticly limitless amount of derived units without > approved names (eg: volume, luminance). There are 21 prefixes (powers > of 10 scalings) any one of these units may have applied to them. Of > course many of those would make no sense and could probably be left > out (eg: yottaseconds, zeptoamperes). But if you try to do the math > from here, you get into a ludicrous number of operator routines you > are going to have to create. >... > other words that there are only a limited number of other units that > any one unit will ever have to interact with (not related at all to So it's a Bad Idea to try to make one units package for all the world to use, but reasonable ones for reasonable subsets of the world may still be a Good Idea. Should a single program actually deal with some distances in meters, some in centimeters, and some in kilometers, or miles? Given floating point arithmetic, that sounds to me like a way to write sloppy, debug slowly (or explain to Congress, painfully). In the real world, how often does a chemist need accelerations, or a mechanical engineer mol, anybody mole*acceleration. Strong typing is a powerful tool to expose errors. You need an awfully good reason to forswear use of such a tool.