Andrei:

> Not all users dislike iota,

A poll will tell how much this statement is true :-)


> and besides arguments ad populum are fallacious.

That's true for scientific and engineering (or medical, etc) things but names 
are not a science. The process of choosing names is part of ergonomics, it must 
deal with what people, with what they find closer to their mind, culture, 
brain. Python developers discuss carefully about naming, and indeed, Python 
names are sometimes better than Phobos ones. One of the problems here is that 
the mind of every person, you, me, Walter's has "quirks", that is mind 
processes not shared by most other people. So if a single person chooses names, 
those quirks come out, and the names are uniform (because they are chosen using 
the same strategy, and this is positive), but sometimes they also reflect those 
quirks. The only way I know to avoid this problem is to design names using 
polls :-)


> Iota rocks. But have at it - vote away, and I'll be glad if 
> a better name for iota comes about.

I am not going to invent a new wonderful name for it, sorry :-) My votes, in 
decreasing order of preference:
1) By far, a syntax like a..b:c, or missing that, a syntax like a..b
2) If first class interval syntax is really not possible, then my second choice 
is a function named "range". This is what Python uses, it's natural, short 
enough, and good.
3) If you refuse the word "range", then my third choice is "interval". It's as 
cleas as range, but it's a bit worse because it's longer.
4) My fourth choice is "iota". It's short and it sticks in mind.

Bye,
bearophile

Reply via email to