On 10/16/2010 09:16 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
Leandro Lucarella wrote:
Walter and you have the same convoluted brain, I can understand why he
instantly recognize it ;)
I already made my point, it make no sense to keep defending my position
since, evidently, is a pure subjective matter.
It certainly is a glorious bikeshed.
I just think auto a_bird = duck!Bird(a_duck) is not obvious at all
compared to auto a_bird = adapt!Bird(a_duck). I even think adaptTo is
even cleaner, and I tend to hate long names, specially when camelCase is
involved, but since you didn't like it I, as others, suggested simply
adapt). If one could write auto a_bird = adapt!a_duck(Bird), adapt would
be as clear as adaptTo is with the current syntax. With adaptTo!Type you
even have the precedent of the to!Type template, so it seems like a nice
extension.
Microsoft has a tradition of naming their products after what they do:
Windows, Word, Office, etc. It's obvious why they do it, and it works,
but it is just so generic and dull.
Being the upstart language, D needs now and then something a little more
attention-getting than generic terms. The "duck" feature is important
for two reasons:
1. duck typing is all the rage now
2. being able to implement duck typing as a library feature (rather than
a language one) is a great demonstration of what D can do
Label it "adaptTo" and few will even notice it. Label it "duck" and
people will click on the link to see what it does. It's important that
people notice that D has these things, and "duck" helps with that.
I think that is a wrong approach to marketing. Even microsoft avoids
giving fancy names to API functions. It is ok to give a fancy name to an
API (Windows Presentation Foundation, etc) or a product but the mundane
function names should be as boring and factual as they deserve it. It is
poor programmers and not marketing folks who will be using them.
As other people said, there are better ways of marketing D. For example,
you may want to hire a professional web designer to make D's web site
look less amateurish.
