Re: mathlib

["Joseph Manning" <manning@...>]

On 2014-Apr-03 (Thu) at 17:35 (-0300), Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:

>> We are considering removing some functions from the standard math lib,
>> either because we think few people use them or because they are trivially
>> implemented without the library. The current list is this:

Roberto,

   While on the subject of the 'math' library, why does Lua provide

      math.pi   --  ==  4 * math.atan( 1 )

   but not

      math.e    --  ==  math.exp( 1 )

   It would seem more consistent to provide either both or neither.

   Is it due to the greater computational effort in 4 * math.atan( 1 ) ?
   This does not seem like a particularly strong reason; if 'pi' is used
   many times in a program, it could be cached into a local anyway.

   Or is it felt that people use 'pi' vastly more often than 'e'?

Joseph

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Joseph Manning / Computer Science / UCC Cork Ireland / manning@cs.ucc.ie
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