On 02/09/2011 09:09 PM, Daniel Gibson wrote:
Am 09.02.2011 21:08, schrieb Ary Manzana:
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)
I agree that iota is a bad name, but "Range" is a bad name because it's already
used in D.
Use "Interval". Actually better than range, because it's an international word
(thus far easier for non-native English speakers). English very often provides
2 words (typically one is germanic, the other imported); choose the
international one when none is obviously better.
Denis
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