------- Comment #8 from ruben at tapir dot caltech dot edu 2009-04-30 07:33 ------- In my considered opinion, the need to support these functions has little to do with efficiency or with convenience. It has more to do with accuracy and symmetries; relations such as sind(30)=0.5, cosd(90)=0.0, and such must be fulfilled exactly, and that without damaging finite-differencing properties. Relations such as sind(x)=cosd(90-x) may also be fulfilled to sufficient accuracy - and maybe even exactly. These things are difficult or impossible to achieve using radian units, giving niche use to the degree-based functions for applications where high floating point accuracy of symmetries must be preserved. Angular grids in curvilinear CFD occassionally need that. There must be other examples.
-- http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=27452
