Le 09/02/2011 21:08, Ary Manzana a écrit :
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)
Hi,
I agree iota is a bad name.
FWIW, what comes to my mind when I read it is an idea of tininess, such
as in the expression : "It didn't change an iota". I certainly miss the
mathematical reference.
Retro is self explanatory when you read it, even if it is not the first
to come to mind. Backwards may have been better. Reverse is already in
std.algorithm and would have confused the user.
Cheers,
Olivier.
