On Saturday 31 January 2009 09:41:36 Jeremiah MacGregor wrote: > Martin, > > I had forgotten, but there can be no mistake or misunderstanding when it is > repeated in a series of numbers. But as i said it may already be in use in > some countries. I've seen desktop calculators use the apostrophe that > way. > > I would think that for the very few that use that method of angular > measurement they could stop and just use decimal degrees or radians.
Speaking as a drawer of land surveys, I'd prefer decimal degrees to DMS or radians for bearings, and slightly to gons for angles in houses. I'm writing a surveying program (when I have time to work on it) and it'll allow I/O in degrees, DMS, and grads (as well as its internal unit, which is 2^-31 rotation in hex). But all the maps I deal with (except some old ones which have fractions of degrees) use DMS. I have to use radians for curve calculations. But I would not like bearings expressed in radians, because the difference between e.g. S1.5E and N1.4E is irrational in both degrees and radians. I have talked with someone who mixfused minutes and seconds with feet and inches. Pierre
