Math.TAU

[Rick Waldron]

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 10:27 AM, Jan Keromnes <jan at mozilla.com> wrote:

> I'd just like to add that "joke requests" like Math.TAU that have no
>> place in the language specification itself generate a considerable
>> amount of overhead for those of us who keep up with the mailing list.
>>
>
> I don't think asking for Math.TAU was a "joke request". It's rather a
> request for a convenient short-cut to the value `Math.PI * 2`, of which the
> utility and judiciousness can be debated. Sorry if I'm adding noise to this
> less-interesting thread, but I feel the issue is being dismissed without
> adequate consideration. I'm looking forward to Brendan championning it at
> the next TC39 meeting, so that we can accept or dismiss it with a proper
> review.
>
> My take is that having Math.TAU would end this kind of madness:
> https://github.com/search?q=%22Math.PI*2%22&ref=searchresults&type=Code


Probably not-so-coincidentally, I have almost the same search url saved in
notes I'm preparing for discussion at the next TC39 meeting. If you remove
the "Math." part, there are 20,288 more matches:
https://github.com/search?q=%22PI*2%22&type=Code&ref=searchresults if you
add spaces between PI, *, 2 there are over 3000 more matches. When the
parts of the term are flipped around as "2*PI":
https://github.com/search?q=%222*PI%22&type=Code&ref=searchresults (137,134
matches for those that don't want to click). Then variations of "math.PI",
"Math.PI" with or without spaces will yield several thousand more for each.

Just because other languages don't include a TAU constant doesn't mean
ECMAScript cannot.

Just because "serious mathematicians" think this is "crackpot territory",
doesn't mean it's not useful (the condescension of that claim certainly
isn't).

Rick
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