I agree. I think Box is more cross-cultural and has no confusing meanings (e.g. can = possible). But Tyler makes a good point. Really, it should be called something like OptionWithFailure. And we should stop trying to abbreviate everything (*maybe* OptionWFailure). After all, how often do you actually write out "Can"? Usually it's Full() or Empty.
IMO, things should be self-explanatory and documentation should only be a fall back. It's generally a bad idea in my experience to rely on documentation. Frankly, I, too, found Can quite confusing, even though I already knew what Option did. Chas. Marius wrote: > Between Can, Cup and Box ...Box makes most sense to me ... (I'm not > going to suggest Bottle :) ...) > > Br's, > Marius > > On 20 Dec, 18:19, Tim Perrett <[email protected]> wrote: >> Speaking from personal experience, what I didn't realize to begin with >> was that the can was what we in England call a tin, and the >> connotation of "you can do something" is conceptually very different >> to "a can (tin) contains x" if you follow my meaning... >> >> I think the problem can be solved by better docs, and a paper that >> explains the rational of can as a container - this would fix the curve >> of understanding IMO. What usually happens when noobies ask about can, >> is that people are pointed in the direction of Option, but if your new >> to scala, that is fairly meaningless also as those comming from java >> et al are using to checking for null so don't see why you need a >> container. >> >> Just my two pence >> >> Cheers, Tim >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On 20 Dec 2008, at 14:43, "David Pollak" >> >> <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Folks, >>> Over the year that Lift has had Can[T] as a replacement for Scala's >>> Option[T], the name "Can" has required a lot of explaining. >>> As we make the final push into freezing Lift's APIs, do we want to >>> change the name of Can to something else or should we leave it as >>> Can. Alternatives are: >>> Cup >>> Box >>> Both of which can be Full/Empty. >>> Thanks, >>> David >>> PS -- The Scala collections classes are getting a redo for 2.8. >>> I've been gently pestering Martin to expand Option to have a Failure >>> case. If this happens (it's not really likely for a couple of >>> reasons), Can will be orphaned. >>> -- >>> Lift, the simply functional web frameworkhttp://liftweb.net >>> Collaborative Task Managementhttp://much4.us >>> Follow me:http://twitter.com/dpp >>> Git some:http://github.com/dpp > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lift" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/liftweb?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
