[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Angle Type

[Jonathan Hull]

Hi Evolution,

I would really like to see Swift gain an Angle type in the standard library.  Every time I have to deal with an angle in an api, I have to go figure out the conventions for that call.  Is it in degrees? Is it in radians?  What if it is in radians, but I want to think about it in degrees?

I ended up writing an Angle type for my own code a few years back, and I have to say it is really wonderful.  It has greatly simplified my graphics work.  It takes a lot of mental load off of my brain when dealing with Angles.

I can of course initialize it either as degrees or radians (or revolutions), but I can also just say things like ‘.threeQuarterTurn’, and then I can get the value back out in whatever format I like.  There are also useful additions that let me normalize the angle to different ranges and which let me snap to the nearest multiple of an angle. Both of these are enormously useful for user facing features.  I can also do math on angles in a way that makes geometric sense for angles.  It is also really useful for interacting with CGVectors in intelligent ways.

Using Doubles or CGFloats to represent angles everywhere is just semantically wrong IMHO, and it stops us from adding all of these angle-specific niceties.

Happy to provide code if there is interest…

Thanks,
Jon
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