I don't think this would improve Elixir. Elixir favors explicitness over implicitness and fewer keystrokes and the only argument for this seems to be convenience.
More worrying, `Enum.take/2` returns a list of items. If there was an `Enum.take/1`, I'd expect it to simply default the number of items taken, but to still return a list (even if it's just a list of one item). But from this thread it sounds like you're wanting an `Enum.take/1` that returns just the first item without it being wrapped in a list. IMO, that would be incredibly confusing. It would lead to different behavior for `&Enum.take/1` and `&Enum.take(&1, 1)` which would be very counter-intuitive. Myron On Saturday, April 22, 2017 at 7:10:27 AM UTC-7, Amos King wrote: > > You want to add a default of 1 to Enum.take/2? I personally don't mind > that but I think it takes away from the explicit nature of the module. I > prefer explicitness if we are only saving a few keystrokes. > > Amos King > Binary Noggin > > On Apr 22, 2017, at 04:12, Sam Davies <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > I understand the reasoning. That's why I suggest the name `take` NOT the > name `first` to make it clear there is no implied ordering. > > The use case for this is often while working in IEx. I have a collection > of _somethings_ and I want to see what one _something_looks like. I don't > care about ordering. > > Rails' ActiveRecord has a method called `take` which does much the same > thing - there is no implied ordering, it just grabs a member using some > unspecified ordering and returns it. > > We already have `take/1` which returns the "first" X elements, so it seems > logical to me to extend that to `take/0` which returns the "first" ONE > element. > > On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 5:55:22 PM UTC+1, Allen Madsen wrote: >> >> Also hd, which takes the head of the list. >> >> Allen Madsen >> http://www.allenmadsen.com >> >> On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 12:44 PM, OvermindDL1 <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Two things: >>> 1. The `List` module already has a `List.first/1`. >>> 2. Not all enumerables have a concept of ordering, like a map, so I'm >>> not sure an Enum version of such a thing makes conceptual sense? >>> >>> On Thursday, April 20, 2017 at 10:33:11 AM UTC-6, Sam Davies wrote: >>>> >>>> When working with collections it's often convenient to grab the first >>>> element that comes to hand. I find myself writing this a lot: >>>> >>>> `Enum.take(collection, 1)` or `Enum.at(collection, 0)` >>>> >>>> How about a function `Enum.take/1` which takes only the collection and >>>> returns the "first" value (I avoid naming it `Enum.first/1` since some >>>> collections may not have any concept of ordering). >>>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "elixir-lang-core" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/69a0953e-07b3-4cc6-8cc0-bee718337ea5%40googlegroups.com >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/69a0953e-07b3-4cc6-8cc0-bee718337ea5%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "elixir-lang-core" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/bd395d6b-e64d-41ef-970e-8ac33c0e279c%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/bd395d6b-e64d-41ef-970e-8ac33c0e279c%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "elixir-lang-core" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/elixir-lang-core/82a8d024-6b61-4695-b2f2-f77429cb012a%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
