I'm not convinced that the type system shouldn't be helping with dimensional analysis, but at least it shouldn't hurt. By all means, let the programmer raise a Duration to a power - but the type of the result should not also be Duration. In the absence of automatic dimension tracking, just return a plain number.
On Wednesday, November 17, 2010, Moritz Lenz <mor...@faui2k3.org> wrote: > Am 17.11.2010 14:02, schrieb Oha: > > On 11/17/2010 01:46 PM, Moritz Lenz wrote: > > Just as a data point, in physics duration squared does exist. > > On the other hand, i can see why an Instant can't be used as a linear > value: it does not have a clear origin (or zero value). > > > That's correct, and the reason that nobody argued for changing Instant so far. > > > Therefore the multiplication of two Instant may results in different > results based on where you place the zero, unless you first convert > the Instant in a Duration (e.g. seconds since 1 jan 1970) > > > Right. And therefore having to do the conversion explicitly is a good thing > -- you immediately see which epoch was used. > > Cheers, > Moritz > -- Mark J. Reed <markjr...@gmail.com>
