on polar math and polar bear dipping

as may be inferred from the title, there are two parts to this post

the geeky part:

i have been toying around with the concept of polar math. in graphical programming, the idea of a sprite arching across the screen is inconceivable without the use of polar coordinates ( as in r and theta). the only trouble is the compy doesn't natively understand polar coordinates. its little brain comprehends only rectangular coordinates (as in x and y). so that leaves the programmer with all sorts of tedious conversions, calculations, and re-conversions in order to blit his sprite to the screen in its proper location.

to me this seemed horribly tedious . . . until i thought about it from the object oriented perspective. oop (object oriented programming) makes it possible to do all of this in a tidy and relatively simple way. in the sprite object, the coordinates processing is done by a Point object. the point object will hold the rectangular coordinates in two integer instance variables. then accessor methods such as GetPolar would convert the coordinates to polar and return a PolarPoint object (inheriting, along with RectangularPoint, from point). with this structure, all of the conversions can be done without code duplication and with such neat information hiding that will make your source code the envy of the neighborhood.

and the non-geeky part:

this is a wonderful time of year. the cold, the cheerfulness, and the craziness of break make me think of one thing: polar bear dipping in the fountain. i'm sure that i am not the only one who has entertained this thought. just think of the fun it would be to romp across that fountain in a skimpy pair of swim trunks when its 19 degrees outside. i can barely hold back my desire to leap headlong into the icy shallows of the triple g's waters. but as we all must do this time of year, i must refrain . . . b/c i don't think the bojo50's would care for that too much . . .