> In all these places, you should be able to hold up a ruler and have 1cm=1cm.
I don't necessarily agree, I guess. If all of the monitors are set up at the same viewing distance, then yes, 1cm=1cm if stuff is measure in arcdegrees. But if they're not — say one is a larger device that's typically viewed further away — then no, the absolute physical length of a displayed item should, again IMO, increase to compensate for the distance.
I think this is a better system than today's, which seem to be mostly a hodge-podge of bad assumptions that the screen's DPI is always X, and fiddling with UI zoom settings until something respectable comes out.
I am not saying that there aren't good use cases for a display device to output actual cm/in, however: for example, if I want to preview how a printed document will actually physically look, I absolutely think there should be an API to say, "No, I don't want to display this is arcdegrees, I want this thing to be absolute 8.5 in by 11 in." and then in that case, yes 1cm=1cm.
That is, it's contextual, but I think arcdegrees provide a better default for the majority of use cases.
I don't necessarily agree, I guess. If all of the monitors are set up at the same viewing distance, then yes, 1cm=1cm if stuff is measure in arcdegrees. But if they're not — say one is a larger device that's typically viewed further away — then no, the absolute physical length of a displayed item should, again IMO, increase to compensate for the distance.
I think this is a better system than today's, which seem to be mostly a hodge-podge of bad assumptions that the screen's DPI is always X, and fiddling with UI zoom settings until something respectable comes out.
I am not saying that there aren't good use cases for a display device to output actual cm/in, however: for example, if I want to preview how a printed document will actually physically look, I absolutely think there should be an API to say, "No, I don't want to display this is arcdegrees, I want this thing to be absolute 8.5 in by 11 in." and then in that case, yes 1cm=1cm.
That is, it's contextual, but I think arcdegrees provide a better default for the majority of use cases.