- From: David Singer <singer@apple.com>
- Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 10:41:11 -0700
- To: Brad Kemper <brad.kemper@gmail.com>
- Cc: Chris Marrin <cmarrin@apple.com>, Simon Fraser <smfr@me.com>, Daniel Glazman <daniel.glazman@disruptive-innovations.com>, "L. DavidBaron" <dbaron@dbaron.org>, "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>, www-style list <www-style@w3.org>
On Sep 22, 2010, at 8:02 , Brad Kemper wrote: > > On Sep 21, 2010, at 4:21 PM, David Singer wrote: > >> >> On Sep 21, 2010, at 11:21 , Brad Kemper wrote: >> >>>> And there is a long tradition in mathematics of the positive Y axis going up. But in HTML the Y axis goes down, because of the (western) tradition of reading from top to bottom. >>> >>> I don't see how that is relevant to traditions of angle-based linear directions. You can still have 0deg=left-to-right and 90deg=bottom-to-top when y++ progresses downward. . >>> >> >> whoa, the normal expectation is that 0 is the x-axis and that increasing angles move towards the positive Y-axis at 90 degrees (or the appropriate number of radians :-)). > > That may be ingrained into your understanding of rotation, but I do not think it is a common way to think of angles as specifiers of linear direction. If someone asks me to draw a 45 degree angle, I draw a line pointing to the right and another line, connected to the first on the left, pointing up and to the right. If superimposed on a square it would go from lower left to upper right corners. When I draw that angle, it never enters my mind which direction the positive y-axis points, and I have no expectation that it matters. I really don't think I am unusual in thinking this way, except perhaps amongst a this crowd. OK, but that's not quite what the question is. "Draw a line at 45 degrees" is more like it, and is likely to result in one of 3 responses: a) 45 degrees to what? b) given a piece of paper, a line from top left to bottom right c) given a piece of paper, a line from bottom left to top right I think many people, if asked, "on a cartesian grid, what is the relationship between a vector along the Y-axis and a vector at 90 degrees?" would say that they are the same, and surprise might not be enough if told that the Y axis is at MINUS 90 degrees. They may need astonishment. David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
Received on Wednesday, 22 September 2010 17:42:16 UTC