On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> On 28 Mar 2000, Lars Clausen wrote:
> 
>> So do we go with Knuth, PostScript or ATA?  Units are such fun.  And I
>> haven't even brought the six different European points into it:)
> 
> The Babylonian civilisation has collapsed since quite a few years. 

Not in CS, it hasn't :)

> Let's drop those bizarre multipliers ; milimetres (or micrometres, if we
> want to keep values integer) and powers of ten are good enough, and
> computer friendly enough :-) [at least for internal processing. Support
> for legacy units in the UI is not a problem, is it ?]

We're definitely going to stick to centimeters internally.  But we do need
support for legacy units in the UI, and we need to agree on a definition
there. 

> (Well, in fact, we should develop our own set of units, based on a
> 1/16384 of the length of a meridian, with powers of two everywhere. No,
> just kidding.)

If *I* were to define a new set of units, it'd be based on the speed of
light and the size of the hydrogen atom.  Now *those* are truly universal
standards.  But I like the idea of it being binary.  Decimal systems are
for wussy hairless monkeys:)

-Lars

-- 
Lars Clausen (http://shasta.cs.uiuc.edu/~lrclause) | H�rdgrim of Numenor
"I do not agree with a word that you say, but I    | Retainer of Sir Kegg
will defend to the death your right to say it."    |   of Westfield
    --Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrasing Voltaire   | Chaos Berserker of Khorne

Reply via email to