This is a cool idea. There are other programming languages that have libraries that expose similar behavior. For instance, Rust has the uom crate, Haskell has the units package, and C++ has the header only library SI.
But there is something to be said about it being built in.
For sure. It’d be nice to have the units in a separate namespace but at least Numbat won’t let you override identifiers already defined in the system of measure. I use Pint on Python - I usually keep the units in an identifier named u so they can’t get accidentally overridden. That means either using u.km for single units or u('g/cm^3') for composite units. It’d be great if the language could separate units e.g. as [km] or `` but getting a compact syntax to distinguish the units namespace without colliding with other language features would be tricky. I remember F# having a good syntax but didn’t dive that deep since it’s not used widely in my field.
This is a cool idea. There are other programming languages that have libraries that expose similar behavior. For instance, Rust has the uom crate, Haskell has the units package, and C++ has the header only library SI.
But there is something to be said about it being built in.
For sure. It’d be nice to have the units in a separate namespace but at least Numbat won’t let you override identifiers already defined in the system of measure. I use Pint on Python - I usually keep the units in an identifier named
uso they can’t get accidentally overridden. That means either usingu.kmfor single units oru('g/cm^3')for composite units. It’d be great if the language could separate units e.g. as[km]or `` but getting a compact syntax to distinguish the units namespace without colliding with other language features would be tricky. I remember F# having a good syntax but didn’t dive that deep since it’s not used widely in my field.