Define the degree symbol (°) as the DEG_TO_RAD constant

[simleb]

Mathematica defines ° as pi/180 so you can write degrees naturally, like in Sin[90°].

In julia, it's as easy as typing ° = pi / 180:

julia> 180°
3.141592653589793

julia> sin(90°)
1.0

I don't see any other clever use of ° so what about making it a constant?

[wlbksy]

Isn't hard to type this symbol. Even I do have a Input Method, I have to turn to Soft Keyboard to type it. If one really needs this, a simpler alternative would be better. Otherwise, pi / 180 remains a clear way of maintaining codes.

[simleb]

Oh, I didn't realize that. I have a french keyboard (azerty) and ° is just a Shift + ) away!

No one really needs this. It's a detail but it doesn't hurt and is even quite pleasant to use (for french keyboard users at least!).

[Keno]

Same on German keyboards

[carlobaldassi]

International version: ComposeKey+o+o -> °

[pao]

Windows version: Alt + NumPad 0, 1, 7, 6

[wlbksy]

Personally, I like this note which I have used since primary school on paper. Seems it helps people a lot, I fully approve this. Chinese Input Method even has a quite simple workaround for typing this symbol (type du which is Chinese pronunciation of "degree"), just curious about people using laptop with EN_US keyboards and no NumPad

[wlbksy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%B0#Keyboard_entry find this...pathetic for laptops

[simonbyrne]

Mathematica defines ° as pi/180 so you can write degrees naturally, like in Sin[90°].

That's not quite true: typing 180° returns 180°, it just acts like pi (at least it does in version 8).

It could be possible to recreate similar behaviour in Julia defining a new type, say AngleDegree, and have ° be a constant unit of this type, similar to the im constant for the ComplexPair type: https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/blob/master/base/complex.jl

The downside of this approach is that it would require defining new methods for the mathematical operators (both trigonometric cos, sin, as well as +, *, etc.)

[Keno]

Well yes, but that's because Mathematica is inherently symbolical, while Julia is not (consider FullSimplify[°/Pi]). I can't see any case in which one would need a separate AngleDegree type.

[ViralBShah]

I prefer to not do this for a different reason. It imposes a cost on others modifying codes that use such features.

[simonbyrne]

I agree it's probably not worth implementing in Base, but it could be useful to incorporate into a package that allowed for units to be attached to numeric values, similar to F#'s support for units of measure: I've heard from someone in finance that they find it really useful, as they often end up working in weird non-SI units, and that it can help catch conversion and other errors.

[JeffBezanson]

Ok. Adding const ° = pi / 180 to your file/module is easy, so we don't need this in base.