Re: Amendments in calc-units.el

[David Kastrup]

Jay Belanger <address@hidden> writes:

> Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:
> ...
>>> Also, using "point" for point (of
>>> whatever kind) and "tpt" for TeX point lacks symmetry; perhaps
>>> "texpoint" for TeX point would be better.
>>
>> Well you're probably right that it should be "pspoint", with an alias.
>
> That's a good idea, although I was thinking of "pt" vs "point" difference.
>
>>  [The common name for what tex uses seems to be "typographer's point"]
>
> According to the data file for the units program, the printer's point
> (the same as typographer's point?) is precisely 0.013837 inches, while
> the TeX point is 1/72.27 inches = 0.013837000138... inches.  Then the
> units program cheerfully ignores the difference.  Makes sense,
> perhaps.

Not really.  The TeX dimensions happen to be all _rationally_ related
to the metric system and are exactly representable.

One should probably have all TeX dimensions be defined in the course
of those ratios: that makes it possible to use rational operations for
converting units between TeX and PostScript (for example).

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum