On Thursday, February 10, 2011 17:45:21 Nick Sabalausky wrote: > "Andrei Alexandrescu" <seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org> wrote in message > news:ij1nkf$i7g$2...@digitalmars.com... > > > I don't find the name "iota" stupid. > > Far as I can tell, you seem to be nearly the only one who finds it to be a > good name. I can live with it, since I've just simply learned that in D > "iota(x,y)" means "range of integers from [x,y)". And the controversy over > it's name helps me to remember. But still, I'm yet another in the seemingly > much larger camp of "The word 'iota' doesn't remotely reflect what it > does". Additionally, I've never known any other meaning for "iota" besides > "vey small amount", I've never used APL, and I've certainly never used > non-standard SGI extensions to C++. > > (Actually, the first time I saw "iota()", my thought was "Wait, I thought D > used the much more readable to!string(7)...oh, wait, that says iota, not > itoa..." But that might just be my problem ;) ) > > FWIW, I do like "retro".
I feel pretty much the same way. iota seems like a horrible name as far as figuring out what the function does from its name goes. I don't know what a good name would be though (genSequence?), but since I know what it does, it doesn't confuse me when I see it. It does have the advantage of being short at least. So, I don't think that it's a good name, but I don't think that it's worth changing either. retro is a good name though. But there _are_ going to be functions with relatively poor names, and it's not like we'll ever get agreement on all function names anyway. - Jonathan m Davis
