Re: [patch] Proposal for \rotate in psql

From: Pavel Stehule <pavel(dot)stehule(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: Daniel Verite <daniel(at)manitou-mail(dot)org>
Cc: Greg Stark <stark(at)mit(dot)edu>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: [patch] Proposal for \rotate in psql
Date: 2015-09-08 20:58:59
Message-ID: CAFj8pRC9EueZpu-pirV=kGMw3D59-0DVY3SshcDQHhNidTirUA@mail.gmail.com
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2015-09-08 22:55 GMT+02:00 Daniel Verite <daniel(at)manitou-mail(dot)org>:

> Pavel Stehule wrote:
>
> > rotate ~ sounds like transpose matrix, what is not true in this case.
>

for me the relation rotation is exactly what \x does

>
> The various definitions that I can see, such as
> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rotate
> make no mention of matrices. It applies to anything that
> moves around a pivot or axis.
>
> OTOH, the established term for the matrix operation you're
> referring to appears to be "transpose", as you mention.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpose
>
> I notice that according to
> http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/transpose
> "rotate" is not present in the 25+ synonyms they suggest for
> "transpose".
>
> In the above wikipedia article about matrix transposition,
> "rotate" is also never used anywhere.
>
> "rotate matrix" does not exist for google ngrams, whereas
> "transpose matrix" does.
> https://books.google.com/ngrams
>
> Overall I don't see the evidence that "rotate" alone would
> suggest transposing a matrix.
>
> Now it appears that there is a concept in linear algebra named
> "rotation matrix", defined as:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_matrix
> that seems quite relevant for 3D software.
>
> But as psql is not a tool for linear algebra or 3D in the first place,
> who could realistically be deceived?
>
>
> Best regards,
> --
> Daniel Vérité
> PostgreSQL-powered mailer: http://www.manitou-mail.org
> Twitter: @DanielVerite
>

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