Degrees vs Radians (Notation)

Question

I understand that the argument of a trigonometric function must be a pure number (a radian, if you will) and hence when we talk of 'measuring angles in degrees' we mean things such as $sin(x\frac{\pi}{180}) = sin(x^\circ)$ where $x$ is 'pure number' and not 'measured in' anything. Now say I wanted to find out when $sin$ was equal to $0.5$, I would write down either, $sin(x^\circ) = 0.5$ or $sin(x) = 0.5$, in the first case I think the first few answers are $x=30$ and $x=150$, in the second case I think the answers are $x=30^\circ=\frac{\pi}{6}$ and $x=150^\circ = \frac{5\pi}{6}$. Which way is the 'accpeted' approach? Do we pre-emptively put the degree symbol into the expression or do we add that to our variable?