Hi Stefan, I am just expressing my point of view here as a Mathematica user.
[1] One can't compare Julia and C. C is one of the smallest language than can exist. Therefore, small names are not too much of a problem. Julia aims to be a langage with a huge standard library (kind of "batteries included") which makes it a totally different beast than C. If you look at C++ that has a bigger library, names are more consistent. The larger the library, the more consistency is needed. [2] I think that Matlab gets a lot of things wrong, and its naming conventions (of lack thereof) is just nightmare. For instance why not working on something as: - random(distribution) : gives a random number - random(dimension, distribution) : gives a random matrix - random(sparsity_pattern, distribution) : gives a random sparse matrix I think it fits nicely the dispatch method of Julia which is very closed to what Mathematica does. On Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 1:01:44 AM UTC+2, Stefan Karpinski wrote: > > I'm not sure what the problem with sprandn is. If you're working with > sparse matrices, you'll know what this is. If you're not, then you're > unlikely to accidentally use it. Sure, it's kind of an ugly name, but it's > the traditional, well-known name for this function. I don't see anyone > complaining about cryptic but standard names inherited from C. >
