I like the current order of `take' because it's consistent with Racket's dominant convention. To the list of advantages, I would add "consistent with `take' in SRFI-1".
It seems strange to make `take' less compatible with SRFI-1's `take' toward the end of making `take' be more compatible with SRFI-1's `take-while'. Global consistency (not to mention backward compatibility) seems better served by being incompatible with SRFI-1's `take-while'. At Wed, 8 Jun 2011 09:36:50 -0400, Eli Barzilay wrote: > So ... no objections to this? > > > Yesterday, Eli Barzilay wrote: > > While trying to finally get `take-while' etc, I realized that the > > problem with the `take' (and `drop' and related) argument order is > > even more thorny. The existing problem is that `take' in lazy takes > > the number first and then the list -- not a big problem by itself, > > but: > > > > * Contradicts Haskell's argument order > > > > * Contradicts Clojure's argument order > > > > * *And* contradicts srfi-1's argument order for `take-while', which > > takes the predicate first > > > > So how about making it take its inputs in any order? (Possibly > > deprecating the number-last in the docs and eventually removing it.) > > > > No need to start a flamewar -- I know why it would be bad. But the > > above mess and potential confusion seems big enough to outweigh it. > > Specifically, it seems to me very odd now to go with the srfi-1 > > ordering for `take-while' and friends. (I'm also fine with swapping > > the arguments completely, but it seems that the breakage makes it a > > bad change.) > > > > To make things balanced -- > > > > * I see two arguments for keeping the order as it is now: (a) it makes > > it more like `list-ref' etc, where the number comes last (potential > > solution if the above is acceptable: make it do the same too, or > > just admit that indexing is different from these things); and > > (b) it accomodates better a potential future (list-slice l from too) > > which would look odd with the from-too arguments before the list. > > > > * OTOH, the advantages of the number-first order are being compatible > > with the rest of the world, and an order that is uniformly used in > > `take-while' etc. > > > > Opinions? > > -- > ((lambda (x) (x x)) (lambda (x) (x x))) Eli Barzilay: > http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life! > _________________________________________________ > For list-related administrative tasks: > http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev _________________________________________________ For list-related administrative tasks: http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/dev
