Terms for rotations

[Ilya Zakharevich]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2014 at 02:39:58PM -0800, Garth Wallace wrote:
> I'm leaning towards "turned", "left rotated", and "right rotated" for
> the cardinal orientations,
                              …

Please keep in mind that left/right are especially bad terms to
describe rotations.  When you rotate the character cell about its
center, some parts move to the right, some parts move to the
left — both when the rotation is clockwise and counterclockwise.

Which of the words left/right LOOKS better suited to describe a
particular rotation depends on whether the top or the bottom OF WHAT
YOU ROTATE is more “visually important”.  (We saw it many times when
discussing the math of the rotations with small kids.)  Try to rotate
↓ left ;-].

  (I believe that people associate left ↔ counterclockwise etc only
   because for many shapes, visually, the bottom is just a pedestal
   for the top.  So you “grab” the shape “on top”.]

Hope this helps,
Ilya