On 2/9/11 3:54 PM, bearophile wrote:
- There is no need to learn to use a function with a weird syntax like iota, coming from APL. This makes Phobos and learning D a bit simpler.
I would recommend stop using "weird" names for functions. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh but the only reason I see this function is called "iota" is to demonstrate knowledge (or to sound cool). But programmers using a language don't care about whether the other programmer demonstrates knowledge behind a function name, they just want to get things done, fast.
I mean, if I want to create a range of numbers I would search "range". "iota" will never, ever come to my mind. D has to be more open to public, not only to people who programmed in APL, Go or are mathematics freaks. Guess how a range is called in Ruby? That's right, Range.
Another example: retro. The documentation says "iterates a bidirectional name backwards". Hm, where does "retro" appear in that text? If I want to iterate it backwards, or to reverse the order, the first thing I would write is reverse(range) or backwards(range), "retro" would never come to my mind.
(and no, replies like "you can always alias xxx" are not accepted :-P)
