On Tuesday, 7 July 2015 at 21:15:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
So I thought we were supposed to replace bad names with good
names. Template arguments are indexable, so "sequence" doesn't
quite apply.
What happened? Why are we replacing a crappy term with another
crappy term?
I also saw this change and was horrified. It just replaced one
bad named (Arguments) by another. I just didn't want to stir up
further trouble. But now that it's on the table, here's my
opinion:
For me, "sequence" always reminds me of the mathematical concept,
where elements are of the same type (e.g. only real numbers, but
not a mixture of scalars and vectors), and usually each element
has some relation to either its predecessor, or its index. This
doesn't fit with TypeTuples at all.
Likewise, an array (at least in D) always has exactly one element
type. This doesn't apply to TypeTuples either.
The name I find most fitting to describe them is "tuple". The
trouble with the former name is that it implies them being a
tuple of types, although they don't need to be. So IMO we just
need to find a better specifier.
(Personally I would be fine with "list", too, but Walter finds it
misleading.)
I like "AliasTuple" as suggested by Martin, although it isn't a
perfect fit either when you think of `alias` template params,
which don't match `int`, while `int` can be an element of a
TypeTuple. Alternatively "ArgumentsTuple", or
"TemplateArgumentsTuple", but the latter is too long.
