Ok, this is very interesting, as after pondering my code and the article's main pt, I independently came to the same conclusion that angles are what introduces trig. I agree that maybe people might be using angles as intermediates, but IMO there are cases where they're the most realistic abstraction. For example, how can I map a user's mouse movements, or button presses to a change in rotation without a scalar value? Without trig?
User moves cursor or stick a number of pixels/units. User holds key for a number of ms. This is a scalar: An integer or floating point. I pose this to the trig-avoiders: How do I introduce a scalar value into a system of vectors and matrices or quaternions?
alt Hacker News
Ok, this is very interesting, as after pondering my code and the article's main pt, I independently came to the same conclusion that angles are what introduces trig. I agree that maybe people might be using angles as intermediates, but IMO there are cases where they're the most realistic abstraction. For example, how can I map a user's mouse movements, or button presses to a change in rotation without a scalar value? Without trig?
User moves cursor or stick a number of pixels/units. User holds key for a number of ms. This is a scalar: An integer or floating point. I pose this to the trig-avoiders: How do I introduce a scalar value into a system of vectors and matrices or quaternions?