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digitalmars.D - Whither Tango?

reply Paul D. Anderson <paul.d.removethis.anderson comcast.andthis.net> writes:
Putting even more carts before their horses ---

Will Tango move from D1 to D2 when D2 is "frozen"?

More accurately, I guess, when Walter declares D2 stable and starts on D3?
Feb 18 2010
next sibling parent reply retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:
Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:40:55 -0500, Paul D. Anderson wrote:


 Putting even more carts before their horses ---
 
 Will Tango move from D1 to D2 when D2 is "frozen"?
 
 More accurately, I guess, when Walter declares D2 stable and starts on
 D3?


It might help the badly split community if Tango developers started their 
own fork of D. This way both versions of the language could have a single 
standard library without any public fights. There's so much work gone in 
const-correct Phobos and D2. Some old Tango users might want to have a D1 
style look'n'feel of the language but still develop the language a bit 
further.
Feb 18 2010
parent reply Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> writes:
On 19/02/10 13:13, retard wrote:

 It might help the badly split community if Tango developers started their
 own fork of D.


No, it wouldn't. A fork would *completely* split the community (and be 
disastrous IMO), not help it.
Feb 18 2010
parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
Bernard Helyer wrote:

 On 19/02/10 13:13, retard wrote:

 It might help the badly split community if Tango developers started their
 own fork of D.


 
 No, it wouldn't. A fork would *completely* split the community (and be 
 disastrous IMO), not help it.


I'm not sure.  Given that the damage is already done, if the Tango 
community can break away and be programming in another language derived 
from D, it might finally stop people complaining nonsensically that D 
has two "standard" libraries.  Tango would be E's standard library, and 
Phobos would remain D's.

Stewart.
Feb 18 2010
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:hlktm1$2gp2$1 digitalmars.com...

 Bernard Helyer wrote:

 On 19/02/10 13:13, retard wrote:

 It might help the badly split community if Tango developers started 
 their
 own fork of D.


 No, it wouldn't. A fork would *completely* split the community (and be 
 disastrous IMO), not help it.


 I'm not sure.  Given that the damage is already done, if the Tango 
 community can break away and be programming in another language derived 
 from D, it might finally stop people complaining nonsensically that D has 
 two "standard" libraries.  Tango would be E's standard library, and Phobos 
 would remain D's.


With D1 it's a legitimate concern, but (if I understand druntime right) once 
Tango is ported, complaining about D2 having 2 std libs would be much like 
complaining about C++ having two or three (std c lib, STL, and boost). If 
that doesn't shut people up about "2 std libs", nothing will.
Feb 18 2010
prev sibling parent reply Ezneh <petitv.isat gmail.com> writes:
Stewart Gordon Wrote:


 Bernard Helyer wrote:

 On 19/02/10 13:13, retard wrote:

 It might help the badly split community if Tango developers started their
 own fork of D.


 
 No, it wouldn't. A fork would *completely* split the community (and be 
 disastrous IMO), not help it.


 
 I'm not sure.  Given that the damage is already done, if the Tango 
 community can break away and be programming in another language derived 
 from D, it might finally stop people complaining nonsensically that D 
 has two "standard" libraries.  Tango would be E's standard library, and 
 Phobos would remain D's.
 
 Stewart.



I don't think that D have to be split in two "community" because it has two
"standard libraries".

And I would be an useless idea to make a new language derived from D only cause
of that too.

So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by
larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


Oh and to be complete about "E" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(programming_language) ;)
Feb 19 2010
parent reply dave eveloper <tango land.net> writes:
Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by
larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more reason for
someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds us that a proper
closure inlining support would make collection algorithms as fast as the ugly
string template hack Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard coded parameter
symbols like a and b.

Wasn't Tango an object oriented hardcore framework for large applications, and
Phobos a procedural simple stdio wrapper for smaller scripts. I think it
wouldn't be so bad if there was a "Mini-d" dialect of D that has focus on

massive libraries and enterprise support.
Feb 19 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
dave eveloper wrote:

 Ezneh Wrote:
 

 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
  Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 
 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?
 
 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds
 us that a proper closure inlining support would make collection
 algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way
 you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like a and b.


If you could provide a list of silly named symbols that could be a 
dealbreaker for a prospective D user, please let me know. Thanks.

Regarding simple lambdas encoded as strings, this:

sort!"a > b"(range);

is just a shortcut for this:

sort!((a, b) {return a > b;})(range);

So Phobos offers more, not less, than a library using delegates throughout.


 Wasn't Tango an object oriented hardcore framework for large
 applications, and Phobos a procedural simple stdio wrapper for
 smaller scripts.


Probably not.


Andrei
Feb 19 2010
parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2010-02-19 09:11:11 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:


 If you could provide a list of silly named symbols that could be a 
 dealbreaker for a prospective D user, please let me know. Thanks.


I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota), 
it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first 
reading. For instance, the other day I was working with input ranges 
and needed a way to take N elements from the range and put them aside 
to work on them later. So I defined my own function "take" for that.

To me, "take" means you take one or more element and they aren't in the 
range anymore afterwards.

If you look at std.range, you'll find the same function 'take', but it 
does its job lazily. That's great, except when you don't expect it. The 
name is not really silly, just not precise enough. I think there should 
be a clue (in the name) telling you it does its job lazily, because in 
general functions do what they say *when* you call them, not at a later 
point in time.

In my case I often have to save some parts of the input for later, and 
any use of lazy ranges in those cases would be a bug. I think 'take' 
should do what it says: take N elements, and immediately, not later.

I know you can write "array(take(5, range))" do do what I want, but the 
point is that take(5, range) alone doesn't do what you'd expect it to 
do at first glance, which is to take 5 elements from the range. Beside, 
"array(take(...))" can be wasteful sometime: for arrays (and some other 
ranges) you can just slice them in two parts and return the first 
slice, no heap allocation needed. But that optimization is harder to 
achieve and expect with the "array(take(...))" combination.

I think this criticism applies to other parts of std.range too.

I expect you'll be unwilling to change the name because however you 
rename it it'll be a little longer and give a less special function 
(the eager one) the simpler name, and that'd be boring. But most people 
will expect to see the less special function when seeing the simple 
name at first, so having it as the default makes the learning curve 
easier and less error-prone.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
While moving off the formal topic of the informal list of "silly names",
me thinks Michel well articulates a valid point.

Cheers
Justin


Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2010-02-19 09:11:11 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:
 

 If you could provide a list of silly named symbols that could be a 
 dealbreaker for a prospective D user, please let me know. Thanks.


 
 I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota), 
 it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first 
 reading. For instance, the other day I was working with input ranges and 
 needed a way to take N elements from the range and put them aside to 
 work on them later. So I defined my own function "take" for that.
 
 To me, "take" means you take one or more element and they aren't in the 
 range anymore afterwards.
 
 If you look at std.range, you'll find the same function 'take', but it 
 does its job lazily. That's great, except when you don't expect it. The 
 name is not really silly, just not precise enough. I think there should 
 be a clue (in the name) telling you it does its job lazily, because in 
 general functions do what they say *when* you call them, not at a later 
 point in time.
 
 In my case I often have to save some parts of the input for later, and 
 any use of lazy ranges in those cases would be a bug. I think 'take' 
 should do what it says: take N elements, and immediately, not later.
 
 I know you can write "array(take(5, range))" do do what I want, but the 
 point is that take(5, range) alone doesn't do what you'd expect it to do 
 at first glance, which is to take 5 elements from the range. Beside, 
 "array(take(...))" can be wasteful sometime: for arrays (and some other 
 ranges) you can just slice them in two parts and return the first slice, 
 no heap allocation needed. But that optimization is harder to achieve 
 and expect with the "array(take(...))" combination.
 
 I think this criticism applies to other parts of std.range too.
 
 I expect you'll be unwilling to change the name because however you 
 rename it it'll be a little longer and give a less special function (the 
 eager one) the simpler name, and that'd be boring. But most people will 
 expect to see the less special function when seeing the simple name at 
 first, so having it as the default makes the learning curve easier and 
 less error-prone.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2010-02-19 09:11:11 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:
 

 If you could provide a list of silly named symbols that could be a 
 dealbreaker for a prospective D user, please let me know. Thanks.


 
 I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota), 
 it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first 
 reading.


The lengthy post below talks about _one_. If there are "many", you 
should be able to effortlessly list a handful.


 For instance, the other day I was working with input ranges and 
 needed a way to take N elements from the range and put them aside to 
 work on them later. So I defined my own function "take" for that.
 
 To me, "take" means you take one or more element and they aren't in the 
 range anymore afterwards.
 
 If you look at std.range, you'll find the same function 'take', but it 
 does its job lazily. That's great, except when you don't expect it.


I'd contend that _you_ don't expect it. Others may as well think it's 
not copying, otherwise it'd be called "takeCopy" or "setAside".

At the end of the day you can't expect to fly blind through an entire 
library. "take" could be defined with a number of arguably good 
semantics. Phobos picked one. (By the way per popular request I reversed 
the order of arguments such that method notation works.)


Andrei
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent yigal chripun <foo bar.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:


 Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2010-02-19 09:11:11 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:
 

 If you could provide a list of silly named symbols that could be a 
 dealbreaker for a prospective D user, please let me know. Thanks.


 
 I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota), 
 it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first 
 reading.


 
 The lengthy post below talks about _one_. If there are "many", you 
 should be able to effortlessly list a handful.
 

 For instance, the other day I was working with input ranges and 
 needed a way to take N elements from the range and put them aside to 
 work on them later. So I defined my own function "take" for that.
 
 To me, "take" means you take one or more element and they aren't in the 
 range anymore afterwards.
 
 If you look at std.range, you'll find the same function 'take', but it 
 does its job lazily. That's great, except when you don't expect it.


 
 I'd contend that _you_ don't expect it. Others may as well think it's 
 not copying, otherwise it'd be called "takeCopy" or "setAside".
 
 At the end of the day you can't expect to fly blind through an entire 
 library. "take" could be defined with a number of arguably good 
 semantics. Phobos picked one. (By the way per popular request I reversed 
 the order of arguments such that method notation works.)
 
 
 Andrei


I think Michel raised a good point and Kenny did provide a list in a different
post. 

I think that having lists of function names that people here don't like is
silly and not productive. IMO, the problem is not in the names themselves but
rather it's a bigger picture issue of lack of consistency and strict naming
scheme for phobos. 

let's take a look at popular language that are widely used: 
they all have very detailed schemes which make it easier to start using the
language right away which makes it easier to adopt. 
you _can_ look at e.g. Ruby code and have a general understanding  what the
code does without reading the docs. 
The fact of the matter is that programmers do expect to be able to get as much
information as possible from the code itself before going to the docs.  RTFM
simply won't do. 

you think managers care about the code? you think they want to spend time on
their programmers reading TDPL? of course not. They want the job done as
quickly as possible. D is counter productive for that ATM.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2010-02-20 11:14:48 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:


 Michel Fortin wrote:

 I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota), 
 it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first 
 reading.


 
 The lengthy post below talks about _one_. If there are "many", you 
 should be able to effortlessly list a handful.


It takes some time to notice them as they're more subtle that just 
names that look wrong. I'm sure I encountered a couple of them while 
using Phobos, although I can't remember others right now (which might 
be due to me avoiding them now). If you're interested, I can dig a 
little.

But if you're just going to dismiss the criticism by asserting they're 
good semantics anyway (just different that what I expect), then I'm not 
sure it's worth the time finding them and explaining the problem for 
each of them. I'd do better create my own range module and use it 
instead, as I already have some other reasons pushing in that direction.



 At the end of the day you can't expect to fly blind through an entire library.


I'm speaking of one function right now, not an entire library. Assuming 
someone knows the concept of ranges, I think a function called "take" 
taking a range and a length argument should be pretty obvious without 
looking at the documentation.


 "take" could be defined with a number of arguably good semantics.


The minimal thing I'd expect of a "take" function is that it takes 
something when you call it. But this one doesn't. I don't see how you 
can call that "good semantics".

But now I wonder, what is everyone's expectation of a function called "take"?


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Feb 20 2010
parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:


 On 2010-02-20 11:14:48 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu
 <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:
 

 Michel Fortin wrote:

 I don't think there are really any 'silly' names (except perhaps iota),
 it's just that many don't do exactly what you think they do on first
 reading.


 
 The lengthy post below talks about _one_. If there are "many", you
 should be able to effortlessly list a handful.


 
 It takes some time to notice them as they're more subtle that just
 names that look wrong. I'm sure I encountered a couple of them while
 using Phobos, although I can't remember others right now (which might
 be due to me avoiding them now). If you're interested, I can dig a
 little.
 
 But if you're just going to dismiss the criticism by asserting they're
 good semantics anyway (just different that what I expect), then I'm not
 sure it's worth the time finding them and explaining the problem for
 each of them. I'd do better create my own range module and use it
 instead, as I already have some other reasons pushing in that direction.
 
 

 At the end of the day you can't expect to fly blind through an entire
 library.


 
 I'm speaking of one function right now, not an entire library. Assuming
 someone knows the concept of ranges, I think a function called "take"
 taking a range and a length argument should be pretty obvious without
 looking at the documentation.
 

 "take" could be defined with a number of arguably good semantics.


 
 The minimal thing I'd expect of a "take" function is that it takes
 something when you call it. But this one doesn't. I don't see how you
 can call that "good semantics".
 
 But now I wonder, what is everyone's expectation of a function called
 "take"?
 
 


Actually, take does _exactly_ what I'd expect. It functions like the take 
function in Haskell (where altering the list would be impossible since all 
variables are immutable). I think that I've seen Andrei mention stuff about 
Haskell stuff before, so I suspect that that's where he got it from.

Honestly, I don't know how you could know for certain whether a given 
function alters what you pass to it ahead of time unless you look at the 
function signature and description in the docs. I suppose that you could 
make functions have names like takeConst and takeNonConst, or takeImmutable, 
takeMutable, or something like that to indicate whether it alters its 
arguments or not, but that gets ugly fast.

The name take does give you a basic idea of what the function is doing, as 
do many function names, but when it comes down to it, you're going to have 
to read the docs to know exactly what a function does. I don't see any way 
around that. Picking names which give a clear indication of what a function 
does helps a lot, but in the end, you have to look up exactly what they do 
if you want to know for sure.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Gareth Charnock <gareth oerc.ox.ac.uk> writes:
dave eveloper wrote:

 Ezneh Wrote:
 

 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by
larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 
 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?
 
 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more reason for
someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds us that a proper
closure inlining support would make collection algorithms as fast as the ugly
string template hack Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard coded parameter
symbols like a and b.
 
 Wasn't Tango an object oriented hardcore framework for large applications, and
Phobos a procedural simple stdio wrapper for smaller scripts. I think it
wouldn't be so bad if there was a "Mini-d" dialect of D that has focus on

massive libraries and enterprise support.


Nooooooooo!!!

I think the above is the only way to succinctly express my opinions 
about forking. Yes the extra "o"'s and exclamation marks are needed! ;-)

There is nothing wrong with having two "standard", compatible libraries. 
It's kind of like having two libraries except you can always rely on 
them being there. Having libraries you can rely on is without having to 
worry about the download-build-install-add-to-makefile cycle is a good 
thing, especially while learning a language. And D needs all the 
libraries it can get its hands on.

Problems occur when two incompatible "standard" libraries exist, as has 
been apparent, but the should be fixed soon. In fact, I would say that 
making tango and phobos run together out of the box is probably one of 
the most important features of D2 if not the most important.

But two compatible libraries? It means you can choose which one suits 
you best, and if a library you are using uses the other, well that's 
there choice. Perhaps you use mostly phobos but then use tango for XML 
(which I hear is very fast).

I guess I can summarise my position as:

2 > 1
Feb 19 2010
parent reply retard <re tard.com.invalid> writes:
Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:38:02 +0000, Gareth Charnock wrote:


 But two compatible libraries? It means you can choose which one suits
 you best, and if a library you are using uses the other, well that's
 there choice. Perhaps you use mostly phobos but then use tango for XML
 (which I hear is very fast).


I doubt full compatibility can be achieved. E.g. using collection data 
structures from Tango and collection algorithms from Phobos. The 
compatibility is on core features and on binary level - you can mix in 
the both libraries, but it won't be enough to make code portable and 
reusable between the frameworks.
Feb 19 2010
parent Bane <branimir.milosavljevic gmail.com> writes:
Variety is good. If they have different purpose, merging them might not be
good? Anyway, 2 is better than 3.
Feb 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message 
news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by 
 larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a 
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more reason for 
 someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds us that a 
 proper closure inlining support would make collection algorithms as fast 
 as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard 
 coded parameter symbols like a and b.


Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

retro-

a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward” (retrogress); 
on this model, used in the formation of compound words (retrorocket).

So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?



 Wasn't Tango an object oriented hardcore framework for large applications, 
 and Phobos a procedural simple stdio wrapper for smaller scripts. I think 
 it wouldn't be so bad if there was a "Mini-d" dialect of D that has focus 

 like massive libraries and enterprise support.


One of the charters for my SemiTwist D Tools project ( 
www.dsource.org/projects/semitwist ) is to provide wrappers for Tango's 
approach for when you just need something simple. As an example, just the 
other day I added "readUnicodeFile" that wraps tango's File.get and 
UnicodeBom stuff to provide a single no-mess function to load a text file 
written in any UTF format and auto-convert into native-endian UTF-8, 16, or 
32, as desired. (Of course, if Tango wants to adopt any of SemiTwist D Tools 
into itself, I'm all for it.)
Feb 19 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message 
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by 
 larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a 
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more reason for 
 someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds us that a 
 proper closure inlining support would make collection algorithms as fast 
 as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard 
 coded parameter symbols like a and b.


 
 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:
 
 retro-
 
 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward” (retrogress); 
 on this model, used in the formation of compound words (retrorocket).
 
 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.
That's tantamount to what you are saying.  imho, use of "silly"
words like this in the language are a retrograde step.

Cheers

Justin Johansson
Feb 19 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message 
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was 
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a 
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more 
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds 
 us that a proper closure inlining support would make collection 
 algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way 
 you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like a and b.


 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward” 
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words 
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 
 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.


My understanding is that he included it to clarify that it's an 
appropriate word, not to explain a rare word such as "nefandous".


 That's tantamount to what you are saying.  imho, use of "silly"
 words like this in the language are a retrograde step.


This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly 
names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota" 
is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference? 
Talk to me.


Andrei
Feb 19 2010
next sibling parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 
 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly 
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota" 
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference? 
 Talk to me.


For me, and just my opinion even though others may agree the case
against them is tenuous as you say, "retro" and "iota" are the main
odd balls.  My comment was a broadside against retro; not against a
wider list of names.

In fairness to Andrei, sounds like he is seriously listening for
further allegations so now is the time to speak up if you wish to
be heard on the matter of names in phobos.

Cheers
Justin
Feb 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota"
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference?
 Talk to me.


"retro" is unusual, but at least I know what it means.  I may not like
it, but I can use it.

"iota" is horrible.  The last ten times I saw "iota", it was a typo of
"itoa".  Like all Greek letters, 'Κ' is used as a shorthand for all
kinds of different meanings in different fields of science and
mathematics.  It's a useful shorthand because it's a single letter.
Spelling it out as "iota" wastes space without disambiguating between
all the different possible meanings of 'Κ'.

If you're going to go for a single-letter name, "i" is better than
"iota".  It's just as arbitrary, it's just as ambiguous, I have just as
little idea what it means, but it's shorter to write, and you don't need
to know the English names of Greek letters to recognize it.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 19 2010
next sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota"=





 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference?
 Talk to me.


=20
 "retro" is unusual, but at least I know what it means.  I may not like
 it, but I can use it.
=20
 "iota" is horrible.  The last ten times I saw "iota", it was a typo of
 "itoa".  Like all Greek letters, '=CE=B9' is used as a shorthand for al=


l

 kinds of different meanings in different fields of science and
 mathematics.  It's a useful shorthand because it's a single letter.
 Spelling it out as "iota" wastes space without disambiguating between
 all the different possible meanings of '=CE=B9'.
=20
 If you're going to go for a single-letter name, "i" is better than
 "iota".  It's just as arbitrary, it's just as ambiguous, I have just as=



 little idea what it means, but it's shorter to write, and you don't nee=


d

 to know the English names of Greek letters to recognize it.
=20


	Plus, "iota" doesn't mean what it does. According to the dictionary
(Collins Cobuild): "An *iota* of something is an extremely small
amount of it. EG I don't feel one iota of guilt... The buyer would
not go one iota higher... You know, I don't think you've changed an
iota." What's the relation with stepping through a range at fixed
intervals? A much better name would be "step": it's the same length
and it says exactly what it means.

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota"
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference?
 Talk to me.


 
 "retro" is unusual, but at least I know what it means.  I may not like
 it, but I can use it.
 
 "iota" is horrible.  The last ten times I saw "iota", it was a typo of
 "itoa".  Like all Greek letters, 'Κ' is used as a shorthand for all
 kinds of different meanings in different fields of science and
 mathematics.  It's a useful shorthand because it's a single letter.
 Spelling it out as "iota" wastes space without disambiguating between
 all the different possible meanings of 'Κ'.
 
 If you're going to go for a single-letter name, "i" is better than
 "iota".  It's just as arbitrary, it's just as ambiguous, I have just as
 little idea what it means, but it's shorter to write, and you don't need
 to know the English names of Greek letters to recognize it.


"iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: C++ 
and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?

Andrei
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: C++
 and Go.


I've never used or encountered it in C++.  Either it's useless (in which
case it should be dropped), or its name keeps it from being used.


 Anyhow, what's a better name?


Since I still don't know what it does, I can't answer that question.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: C++
 and Go.


 
 I've never used or encountered it in C++.  Either it's useless (in which
 case it should be dropped), or its name keeps it from being used.


The story is different; iota was one of few functions that Stepanov 
defined after the standard process had ended. It's present in most 
implementations as an extension. It's not used as often as it could 
because it's more awkward with iterators than with ranges.


 Anyhow, what's a better name?


 
 Since I still don't know what it does, I can't answer that question.


http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/std_range.html#iota


Andrei
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Anyhow, what's a better name?






Python calls it 'range':

 range(1, 5)






range(1, 5)

 list(range(1, 5))






[1, 2, 3, 4]

 list(range(1, 5, 2))






[1, 3]

I like 'range'.  It's short, it's descriptive, it's immediately
recognizable to someone new to the language.

You could argue that calling this function 'range' would lead to
confusion between the range concept and the range function.  In that
case, you could add a verb and call the function 'makeRange'.
Alternately, if the function is only meant to take numeric arguments,
then 'numericRange' could help distinguish it from other functions that
return ranges.  However, I think that 'range' by itself is sufficiently
clear and unambiguous.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:


 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Anyhow, what's a better name?






 
 Python calls it 'range':

 range(1, 5)






 range(1, 5)

 list(range(1, 5))






 [1, 2, 3, 4]

 list(range(1, 5, 2))






 [1, 3]
 
 I like 'range'.  It's short, it's descriptive, it's immediately
 recognizable to someone new to the language.
 
 You could argue that calling this function 'range' would lead to
 confusion between the range concept and the range function.  In that
 case, you could add a verb and call the function 'makeRange'.
 Alternately, if the function is only meant to take numeric arguments,
 then 'numericRange' could help distinguish it from other functions that
 return ranges.  However, I think that 'range' by itself is sufficiently
 clear and unambiguous.
 
 


I think that makeRange or range would be _highly_ confusing given how the 
term range is used in D, and personally, I wouldn't find it much clearer 
anyway. And can python's range allow for steps greater than 1 between 
numbers? It's not simply the range of numbers between the first and second 
number given. It's the range of numbers with a given step size between each 
number. So, it's not really a range.

I agree that iota is a rather bizarre name, but I haven't a clue what to 
call it. The function is already complicated enough that it really needs 
examples to figure out what it's doing. I certainly can't think of a name 
which comes close to accurately describing what it's doing. And anything 
with range in the name would just increase the confusion.

I tend to agree with Michel in that it's better to have a name which is not 
immediately obvious but which _is_ memorable. That way, you have to look it 
up and actually understand it. And then you'll remember it. Unless a name 
can be found which makes it crystal clear what it does, I think that it's 
far better to just leave it as iota. And if there are other languages which 
already use iota for a function which does this, then it makes that much 
more sense to stick with the name. Then it _will_ be clear to people who 
have seen it in other languages.

No, iota is not the best name ever, but I think that it should be left as it 
is.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
On 2/20/2010 19:55, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 I think that makeRange or range would be _highly_ confusing given how the 
 term range is used in D, and personally, I wouldn't find it much clearer 
 anyway.


'makeRange' is descriptive.  That's what the function does.  It creates
and returns a range, in the D sense of the word "range".


 And can python's range allow for steps greater than 1 between 
 numbers?


Yes.  I even included an example of that in my previous post.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:


 On 2/20/2010 19:55, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 I think that makeRange or range would be _highly_ confusing given how the
 term range is used in D, and personally, I wouldn't find it much clearer
 anyway.


 
 'makeRange' is descriptive.  That's what the function does.  It creates
 and returns a range, in the D sense of the word "range".


Well, technically speaking, it returns a Sequence, but a Sequence is a 
range. In that case, perhaps makeSequence or genSequence would work.


 

 And can python's range allow for steps greater than 1 between
 numbers?


 
 Yes.  I even included an example of that in my previous post.
 
 


Too true. I thought that I had looked, but apparently I wasn't observant 
enough. Sorry about that. I still question that it's wise to use range or 
makeRange in this case though.

I don't know. I find iota to be a fairly bizarre name, bit it's highly 
memorable. I'll remember it far more easily than I would something like 
makeSequence or makeRange. And the fact that iota is used for this purpose 
in other languages certainly gives substance to the argument for keeping it 
- though just because another language does something in a particular manner 
doesn't mean that D should.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
On 2/20/2010 20:44, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:

 'makeRange' is descriptive.  That's what the function does.  It creates
 and returns a range, in the D sense of the word "range".


 
 Well, technically speaking, it returns a Sequence, but a Sequence is a 
 range. In that case, perhaps makeSequence or genSequence would work.


'makeSequence' and 'genSequence' both work for me.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 21 2010
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:


 On 2/20/2010 20:44, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:

 'makeRange' is descriptive.  That's what the function does.  It creates
 and returns a range, in the D sense of the word "range".


 
 Well, technically speaking, it returns a Sequence, but a Sequence is a
 range. In that case, perhaps makeSequence or genSequence would work.


 
 'makeSequence' and 'genSequence' both work for me.
 
 


If I had to pick one, I'd go for genSequence since I prefer the idea of 
"generating" a sequence to "making" one. I do like ioto for it's 
memorability though. I'll remember it _far_ more easily than genSequence or 
makeSequence. But it _is_ a case where the name effectively has nothing to 
do with the function itself, which is generally a bad idea. Of course, there 
are plenty of other things in Computer Science like that - like string - but 
they're generally known and iota isn't.

At this point, if we _have_ to change iota, then I'd go for genSequence, but 
it's fine with me if it stays.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 21 2010
parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
On 2/21/2010 17:42, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:
 If I had to pick one, I'd go for genSequence since I prefer the idea of 
 "generating" a sequence to "making" one. I do like ioto for it's 
 memorability though.


The memorability of iota doesn't scale.  There are 24 letters in the
Greek alphabet.  Imagine that each one was assigned a different function
in D.  Would iota still be memorable next to eta and zeta?  Would you
remember the difference between nu and mu, between eplison and upsilon?

'iota' is memorable to you not because it's a good name, but because it
stands out.  Out of any set of items, only a small subset can stand out.
 A name that stands out is more memorable because it attracts attention,
but that attention is pulled away from other names.  Therefore, the name
'iota' makes the rest of Phobos harder to learn, even if you never use
'iota'.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 21 2010
parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmail.com> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:


 On 2/21/2010 17:42, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:
 If I had to pick one, I'd go for genSequence since I prefer the idea of
 "generating" a sequence to "making" one. I do like ioto for it's
 memorability though.


 
 The memorability of iota doesn't scale.  There are 24 letters in the
 Greek alphabet.  Imagine that each one was assigned a different function
 in D.  Would iota still be memorable next to eta and zeta?  Would you
 remember the difference between nu and mu, between eplison and upsilon?


Oh, I wouldn't try and scale it, and I certainly wouldn't suggest naming 
other functions so poorly. It's just iota _already_ has that name (and that 
name is used for such in other languages to boot), so there's some advantage 
in leaving it as is. However, regardless of whether it's a good idea to 
leave it as iota, I certainly wouldn't suggest going out and naming other 
functions with such obscure/unrelated names. That would definitely make 
things worse.
 

 'iota' is memorable to you not because it's a good name, but because it
 stands out.  Out of any set of items, only a small subset can stand out.
  A name that stands out is more memorable because it attracts attention,
 but that attention is pulled away from other names.  Therefore, the name
 'iota' makes the rest of Phobos harder to learn, even if you never use
 'iota'.


I don't see how iota makes the rest of phobos harder to learn. It's one 
poorly named function. All the rest could have brilliant names or absolutely 
horrific names, and iota wouldn't really have any impact on them either way. 
Sure, it draws attention, but that doesn't make more sensible names any more 
or less clear. I can see changing iota's name because it has nothing to do 
with what the function does, but I can't see changing it because it makes 
the rest of phobos harder to learn. I just don't see the connection.

When it comes down to it, a good deal of the problem is that the best a 
function name can do is give you an idea of what the function does. It's 
quite rare that it tells you _exactly_ what it does, making it so that you 
never have to look at the documentation to be sure.

In any case, I'm fine with iota being changed to genSequence or some other 
reasonably descriptive name, but I'm also fine with it staying it is simply 
because it's easy to remember, and the function is complicated enough that 
the name won't really tell you what it's doing anyway.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 21 2010
parent reply Rainer Deyke <rainerd eldwood.com> writes:
On 2/21/2010 23:07, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 I don't see how iota makes the rest of phobos harder to learn. It's one 
 poorly named function. All the rest could have brilliant names or absolutely 
 horrific names, and iota wouldn't really have any impact on them either way. 


Function names don't exist in isolation.  A consistent naming scheme
makes all names that use that scheme easier to learn.  Adding an
inconsistently named function to a set of consistently named functions
doesn't just make that function harder to learn, but it obscures the
naming scheme.

The effect of a single poorly named function may seem insignificant, but
the cumulative effect of a hundred poorly named function is huge.


-- 
Rainer Deyke - rainerd eldwood.com
Feb 21 2010
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Rainer Deyke wrote:

 On 2/21/2010 23:07, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 I don't see how iota makes the rest of phobos harder to learn. It's one 
 poorly named function. All the rest could have brilliant names or absolutely 
 horrific names, and iota wouldn't really have any impact on them either way. 


 
 Function names don't exist in isolation.  A consistent naming scheme
 makes all names that use that scheme easier to learn.  Adding an
 inconsistently named function to a set of consistently named functions
 doesn't just make that function harder to learn, but it obscures the
 naming scheme.
 
 The effect of a single poorly named function may seem insignificant, but
 the cumulative effect of a hundred poorly named function is huge.


I agree. One issue with this thread has been that it has quickly 
devolved in empty assertions of objectivity built on top of personal 
preferences. There's also a lot of rhetoric spent on solid naming 
schemes, but I see as many schemes as proposers.

Mentioning that a naming scheme is good, no matter how eloquently, is 
restating the obvious. The challenge is devising an actual naming scheme 
that catches existing functionality and future functionality. The latter 
is difficult as there is virtually no prior work on D-like ranges so a 
lot of the territory is uncharted. Besides, if we agree that conventions 
like e.g. enclitic "d" or everything that "generates" must start with 
"gen", I don't think that's a huge step forward: (a) whatever comes 
after "gen" must also be agreed on, (b) there are and will be quite a 
few ranges that are only borderline "gen" and I don't want to smother 
future designs, (c) natural language irregularity works against 
consistent enclitics (e.g. "reverse"/"reversed" works great, but 
"split"/"splat" not as great) or existential prefix "is".


Andrei
Feb 22 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Norbert Nemec <Norbert Nemec-online.de> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: C++ 
 and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?


For me, a Google search for "C++ iota" only returns discussions about 
whether such a function actually exists in the STL. Is it really in the 
standard?

Anyway: Looking at the definition of ĂŻota in Phobos, it simply seems to 
be a slicing operation with a stride. Most intuitive to me would be to 
rename the function to "slice" and the option step to "stride"?
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Norbert Nemec wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: 
 C++ and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?


 
 For me, a Google search for "C++ iota" only returns discussions about 
 whether such a function actually exists in the STL. Is it really in the 
 standard?


It's not in the standard (and I haven't claimed so). It's commonly 
present as an extension.


 Anyway: Looking at the definition of ĂŻota in Phobos, it simply seems to 
 be a slicing operation with a stride. Most intuitive to me would be to 
 rename the function to "slice" and the option step to "stride"?


iota(0, 10, 2) generates the numbers 0, 2, 4, 6, 8.

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/std_range.html#iota

The name "stride" is currently used by a range adaptor that takes a 
range and walks it with a given stride. stride([1, 2, 3], 2) generates 1 
and 2.

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/std_range.html#stride

BTW stride iterators are mentioned by Stepanov:

http://www.stlport.org/resources/StepanovUSA.html


Andrei
Feb 20 2010
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Norbert Nemec wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: 
 C++ and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?


 For me, a Google search for "C++ iota" only returns discussions about 
 whether such a function actually exists in the STL. Is it really in 
 the standard?


 
 It's not in the standard (and I haven't claimed so). It's commonly 
 present as an extension.
 

 Anyway: Looking at the definition of ĂŻota in Phobos, it simply seems 
 to be a slicing operation with a stride. Most intuitive to me would be 
 to rename the function to "slice" and the option step to "stride"?


 
 iota(0, 10, 2) generates the numbers 0, 2, 4, 6, 8.
 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/phobos/std_range.html#iota
 
 The name "stride" is currently used by a range adaptor that takes a 
 range and walks it with a given stride. stride([1, 2, 3], 2) generates 1 
 and 2.


1 and 3, sorry.

Andrei
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2010-02-20 11:04:36 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu 
<SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> said:


 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: 
 C++ and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?


"iota" is perhaps a silly looking name, but at least you're not bound 
to confuse it with something else. It's always better to have names you 
don't understand (forcing you to look at the doc) than names you 
understand subtly wrong (which might introduce bugs).

The best way to get rid of iota would be to replace it with the same 
syntax the language already use elsewhere:

	1..10

Like ruby does with its range operator[^1]. But that's not so simple as 
changing a name...

[^1]: http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Range.html

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Rainer Deyke wrote:

 If you're going to go for a single-letter name, "i" is better than
 "iota".  It's just as arbitrary, it's just as ambiguous, I have just a=




s

 little idea what it means, but it's shorter to write, and you don't ne=




ed

 to know the English names of Greek letters to recognize it.


=20
 "iota" is already present with the same semantics in 1.25 languages: C+=


+

 and Go. Anyhow, what's a better name?
=20


	Just because C++ and Go made a mistake is no reason to make the
same mistake in D.

	You're still not addressing the fact that std.range.iota does not
match the dictionary definition of iota...

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Feb 21 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:hlnl2t$1oif$1 digitalmars.com...

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward” 
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words 
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.


 My understanding is that he included it to clarify that it's an 
 appropriate word, not to explain a rare word such as "nefandous".


Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when talking 
to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, they'll most 
likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.

And as far as being latin: In english, even people (like me) who have gone 
nowhere near a latin class or even some "learn latin in 10 easy steps" book 
in their life are still generally familiar with not only the retro- prefix, 
but a whole bunch of other latin-derived things as well (like bi-, tri-, 
feline, etc.). Heck most english speakers don't even know that stuff is 
latin, they just think assume its english. And that's even despite the fact 
that there's other languages that are even far more latin-influenced then 
english is. Latin, as itself, may be a dead language, but a lot of it still 
exists in many modern languages.
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when talking 
 to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, they'll most 
 likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


What about persons with English not as a first language?

I live in a house with a single carriage driveway.

This morning my wife's car was parked nearer the street (lest I be 
ambiguous and say behind/retro mine).

As I was in a hurry for an appointment, I kindly asked my dear wife to 
retro(*) her car out of the driveway.

(*) using new meening lerned sinz practizing my Inglish from lesions 
learned from D language newsgroup.

This evening my wife arrives back with a new BMW and a bill for $39,999
on my GE Credit and she says to me "I'm so pleased you eventually agreed
to retro my car."

Listen guys.  "retro" in English, and given it's post-classical Latin
roots does not mean the same as "reverse".  "retro" is largely about
going back to a past epoch in time, though not necessarily in a
"reverse" or "descending" manner.  There is a distinction of enormous
manifest between the words "reverse" and "retro".

-- Justin Johansson
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Justin Johansson wrote:

 What about persons with English not as a first language?
 
 I live in a house with a single carriage driveway.
 
 This morning my wife's car was parked nearer the street (lest I be 
 ambiguous and say behind/retro mine).
 


I omitted to say that my wife's first language is Italian.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15:30AM +1030, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Listen guys.  "retro" in English, and given it's post-classical Latin
 roots does not mean the same as "reverse". 


The only difference I've ever heard is reverse is a verb, and retro
is an adjective.

retro rocket = rockets that fire in reverse
retrograde = an orbit that goes in reverse


If it had to change, the next best thing would probably be inReverse();

Do people find that agreeable?


-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15:30AM +1030, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Listen guys.  "retro" in English, and given it's post-classical Latin
 roots does not mean the same as "reverse". 


 
 The only difference I've ever heard is reverse is a verb, and retro
 is an adjective.
 
 retro rocket = rockets that fire in reverse
 retrograde = an orbit that goes in reverse
 
 
 If it had to change, the next best thing would probably be inReverse();
 
 Do people find that agreeable?
 
 


Notwithstanding the untruth or otherwise of the following statement,
how sounds the semantics?

"Using D as a programming language is retrograde to using C++."

Does the writer of that statement actually mean reverse?

Cheers
Justin Johansson
Feb 20 2010
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
news:hlostp$v2r$1 digitalmars.com...

 Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 12:15:30AM +1030, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Listen guys.  "retro" in English, and given it's post-classical Latin
 roots does not mean the same as "reverse".


 The only difference I've ever heard is reverse is a verb, and retro
 is an adjective.

 retro rocket = rockets that fire in reverse
 retrograde = an orbit that goes in reverse


 If it had to change, the next best thing would probably be inReverse();

 Do people find that agreeable?


 Notwithstanding the untruth or otherwise of the following statement,
 how sounds the semantics?

 "Using D as a programming language is retrograde to using C++."

 Does the writer of that statement actually mean reverse?


I've read enough babelfish and google translations that if I saw a statement 
like that, I would assume it was a non-native english speaker (of 
questionable programming langauge preferences) calling D a step backwards 
from C++.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when 
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, 
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some 
point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard for 
phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use in a 
language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english speaker 
is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for 
certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given language/library because 
there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.

For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to use 
it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and I'm not 
even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or cyrillic). 
And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I knew what 
something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize 
that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and 
that it's an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably 
never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some hypothetcal 
point in the future where everyone speaks the same language, then, again, at 
some point there really is no choice but to just assume at least some 
particular language.

Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague 
meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a minute 
to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is made of and 
stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to 
an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly enough. So even if I 
wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I 
still could have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that 
in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not being 
used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and flock-of-seagulls 
haircuts.
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when 
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, 
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 
 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some 
 point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard for 
 phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use in a 
 language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english speaker 
 is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for 
 certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given language/library because 
 there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.
 
 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to use 
 it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and I'm not 
 even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or cyrillic). 
 And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I knew what 
 something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize 
 that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and 
 that it's an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably 
 never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some hypothetcal 
 point in the future where everyone speaks the same language, then, again, at 
 some point there really is no choice but to just assume at least some 
 particular language.
 
 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague 
 meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a minute 
 to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is made of and 
 stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to 
 an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly enough. So even if I 
 wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I 
 still could have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that 
 in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not being 
 used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and flock-of-seagulls 
 haircuts.
 


One famous mathematician, in writing to another famous mathematician,
once wrote "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I don't have
time to be brief".

So question is, are you the former famous mathematician?
Feb 20 2010
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
news:hlov1c$12sr$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when 
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, 
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some 
 point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard 
 for phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use 
 in a language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english 
 speaker is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't 
 know for certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given 
 language/library because there's no guarantee non-native speakers would 
 know any of it.

 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to 
 use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and 
 I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or 
 cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I 
 knew what something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly 
 sympathize that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking 
 programmers, and that it's an issue native english speaking programmers 
 like me will probably never be able to truly understand, but until we get 
 to some hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same 
 language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but to 
 just assume at least some particular language.

 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague 
 meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a 
 minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is 
 made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing 
 at all, even to an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly 
 enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than 
 "old style", I'm sure I still could have gotten used to it very quickly, 
 especially considering that in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty 
 damn clear that it's not being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome 
 appliances, and flock-of-seagulls haircuts.


 One famous mathematician, in writing to another famous mathematician,
 once wrote "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I don't have
 time to be brief".

 So question is, are you the former famous mathematician?


Heh :) No, but one time I did have a college professor refer to my writing 
style as "constipated". Can't say I disagreed ;)
Feb 20 2010
parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlov1c$12sr$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when 
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, 
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some 
 point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard 
 for phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use 
 in a language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english 
 speaker is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't 
 know for certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given 
 language/library because there's no guarantee non-native speakers would 
 know any of it.

 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to 
 use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and 
 I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or 
 cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I 
 knew what something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly 
 sympathize that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking 
 programmers, and that it's an issue native english speaking programmers 
 like me will probably never be able to truly understand, but until we get 
 to some hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same 
 language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but to 
 just assume at least some particular language.

 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague 
 meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a 
 minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is 
 made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing 
 at all, even to an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly 
 enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than 
 "old style", I'm sure I still could have gotten used to it very quickly, 
 especially considering that in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty 
 damn clear that it's not being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome 
 appliances, and flock-of-seagulls haircuts.


 One famous mathematician, in writing to another famous mathematician,
 once wrote "I apologize for the length of this letter, but I don't have
 time to be brief".

 So question is, are you the former famous mathematician?


 
 Heh :) No, but one time I did have a college professor refer to my writing 
 style as "constipated". Can't say I disagreed ;)
 


Oh, Nick, that's a bit unkind of your prof; in any case I don't see a
connection between "constipated" and "voluminous".  Keep on writing;
you have an amusing style as well as the occasional valid point :-)
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply yigal chripun <foo bar.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when 
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated, 
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 
 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some 
 point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard for 
 phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use in a 
 language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english speaker 
 is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for 
 certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given language/library because 
 there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.
 
 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried to use 
 it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and da (and I'm not 
 even sure of the correct spellings of those - in either roman or cyrillic). 
 And I would be well aware that I wouldn't be able to assume I knew what 
 something did without a little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize 
 that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and 
 that it's an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably 
 never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some hypothetcal 
 point in the future where everyone speaks the same language, then, again, at 
 some point there really is no choice but to just assume at least some 
 particular language.
 
 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of vague 
 meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of about a minute 
 to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the stuff cloth is made of and 
 stitched together with. And "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to 
 an english speaker, but I still learned it quickly enough. So even if I 
 wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I 
 still could have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that 
 in 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not being 
 used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and flock-of-seagulls 
 haircuts.
 
 


This is being silly (and needlessly long). 
There's no need to collect statistics on the level of English of non-native D
programmers worldwide to decide what name to use for a function. 

It's very simple actually:
you want to name a function that reverses your range and you have several valid
names for it, please choose the most common word (the first that comes to mind)
which in this case is (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any variation that makes
sense in this particular case, like "reversed") 

simple logic, don't you agree? 
Any human language has more than one way to express oneself. The best way to
reach a wide (and international) audience is to use the most common phrases -
don't go all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words and don't go
getho on me with misspelled slang. 
Is that so much to ask for?
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
yigal chripun wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
 

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-"
 when talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're
 uneducated, they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant
 by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?
 


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but
 at some point a library has to use *some* language, and the
 established standard for phobos just happens to be english. If we
 start banning terms from use in a language or a library on the
 basis of whether a non-native english speaker is likely to know it,
 then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for certain) you'd
 have to eliminate most of the given language/library because 
 there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.
 
 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried
 to use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and
 da (and I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in
 either roman or cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I
 wouldn't be able to assume I knew what something did without a
 little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize that this can be
 a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and that it's
 an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably
  never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some
 hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same
 language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but
 to just assume at least some particular language.
 
 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of
 vague meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of
 about a minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the
 stuff cloth is made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI"
 doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to an english speaker, but I
 still learned it quickly enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with
 "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I still could
 have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that in
 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not
 being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and
 flock-of-seagulls haircuts.
 
 


 
 This is being silly (and needlessly long). There's no need to collect
 statistics on the level of English of non-native D programmers
 worldwide to decide what name to use for a function.
 
 It's very simple actually: you want to name a function that reverses
 your range and you have several valid names for it, please choose the
 most common word (the first that comes to mind) which in this case is
 (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any variation that makes sense in this
 particular case, like "reversed")
 
 simple logic, don't you agree? Any human language has more than one
 way to express oneself. The best way to reach a wide (and
 international) audience is to use the most common phrases - don't go
 all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words and don't go
 getho on me with misspelled slang. Is that so much to ask for?


There's no reason to get agitated as nobody is trying to push 
incomprehensible crap on anyone. The problem I was confronted with was:

(a) "reverse" was already taken;

(b) I found "reversed" too subtly different from "reverse". Besides, it 
wasn't clear to me that it was descriptive enough - e.g. some people 
might believe that "reversed" returns a reversed copy of the range;

(c) I was looking for a short name because I presume the function will 
be used often;

(d) In my experience names that are slightly odd but evocative tend to 
stick to memory.

So I chose "retro". What exactly seems to be the problem? If half of 
Phobos' names were weird, I'd say fine, but this discussion latched on 
poor "retro" and "iota" as if posters' lives depended on it. Again: how 
exactly are these two names preventing you from getting work done?


Andrei
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply yigal chripun <foo bar.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:


 yigal chripun wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
 

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-"
 when talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're
 uneducated, they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant
 by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?
 


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but
 at some point a library has to use *some* language, and the
 established standard for phobos just happens to be english. If we
 start banning terms from use in a language or a library on the
 basis of whether a non-native english speaker is likely to know it,
 then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for certain) you'd
 have to eliminate most of the given language/library because 
 there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.
 
 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried
 to use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and
 da (and I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in
 either roman or cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I
 wouldn't be able to assume I knew what something did without a
 little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize that this can be
 a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and that it's
 an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably
  never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some
 hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same
 language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but
 to just assume at least some particular language.
 
 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of
 vague meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of
 about a minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the
 stuff cloth is made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI"
 doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to an english speaker, but I
 still learned it quickly enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with
 "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I still could
 have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that in
 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not
 being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and
 flock-of-seagulls haircuts.
 
 


 
 This is being silly (and needlessly long). There's no need to collect
 statistics on the level of English of non-native D programmers
 worldwide to decide what name to use for a function.
 
 It's very simple actually: you want to name a function that reverses
 your range and you have several valid names for it, please choose the
 most common word (the first that comes to mind) which in this case is
 (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any variation that makes sense in this
 particular case, like "reversed")
 
 simple logic, don't you agree? Any human language has more than one
 way to express oneself. The best way to reach a wide (and
 international) audience is to use the most common phrases - don't go
 all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words and don't go
 getho on me with misspelled slang. Is that so much to ask for?


 
 There's no reason to get agitated as nobody is trying to push 
 incomprehensible crap on anyone. The problem I was confronted with was:
 
 (a) "reverse" was already taken;
 
 (b) I found "reversed" too subtly different from "reverse". Besides, it 
 wasn't clear to me that it was descriptive enough - e.g. some people 
 might believe that "reversed" returns a reversed copy of the range;
 
 (c) I was looking for a short name because I presume the function will 
 be used often;
 
 (d) In my experience names that are slightly odd but evocative tend to 
 stick to memory.
 
 So I chose "retro". What exactly seems to be the problem? If half of 
 Phobos' names were weird, I'd say fine, but this discussion latched on 
 poor "retro" and "iota" as if posters' lives depended on it. Again: how 
 exactly are these two names preventing you from getting work done?
 
 
 Andrei


you just refuse to get it. It's not the specific retro function that is so
frustrating to me. 
any public API (and especially so for the standard library) *must* have a
consistent naming scheme. It *must* prefer clarity over shortness and it *must*
be designed such that it will lead to easier understanding of code using it
_without_ referring to the manual every function call. 
phobos fails on all the above. 

It's easy to read Java/Python/Ruby/D-with-tango code and understand most of it
from first read. This is VERY important since 95% of time is spent on
maintenance of code that was most likely written by someone else. 

easy maintenance require clarity, not creativity.
Feb 20 2010
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
yigal chripun wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:
 

 yigal chripun wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
 

 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message 
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with
 "retro-" when talking to a english-speaking person, and
 even if they're uneducated, they'll most likely have a good
 idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?
 


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue,
 but at some point a library has to use *some* language, and the
  established standard for phobos just happens to be english. If
 we start banning terms from use in a language or a library on
 the basis of whether a non-native english speaker is likely to
 know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for
 certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given
 language/library because there's no guarantee non-native
 speakers would know any of it.
 
 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I
 tried to use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except
 nyet and da (and I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of
 those - in either roman or cyrillic). And I would be well aware
 that I wouldn't be able to assume I knew what something did
 without a little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize
 that this can be a pain for non-native-english-speaking
 programmers, and that it's an issue native english speaking
 programmers like me will probably never be able to truly
 understand, but until we get to some hypothetcal point in the
 future where everyone speaks the same language, then, again, at
 some point there really is no choice but to just assume at
 least some particular language.
 
 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch
 of vague meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me
 all of about a minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do
 with the stuff cloth is made of and stitched together with. And
 "SCSI" doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to an english
 speaker, but I still learned it quickly enough. So even if I
 wasn't familiar with "retro" as anything other than "old
 style", I'm sure I still could have gotten used to it very
 quickly, especially considering that in 99.99% of contexts it's
 going to be pretty damn clear that it's not being used to refer
 to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and flock-of-seagulls
 haircuts.
 
 


 This is being silly (and needlessly long). There's no need to
 collect statistics on the level of English of non-native D
 programmers worldwide to decide what name to use for a function.
 
 It's very simple actually: you want to name a function that
 reverses your range and you have several valid names for it,
 please choose the most common word (the first that comes to mind)
 which in this case is (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any variation
 that makes sense in this particular case, like "reversed")
 
 simple logic, don't you agree? Any human language has more than
 one way to express oneself. The best way to reach a wide (and 
 international) audience is to use the most common phrases - don't
 go all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words and don't
 go getho on me with misspelled slang. Is that so much to ask for?
 


 There's no reason to get agitated as nobody is trying to push 
 incomprehensible crap on anyone. The problem I was confronted with
 was:
 
 (a) "reverse" was already taken;
 
 (b) I found "reversed" too subtly different from "reverse".
 Besides, it wasn't clear to me that it was descriptive enough -
 e.g. some people might believe that "reversed" returns a reversed
 copy of the range;
 
 (c) I was looking for a short name because I presume the function
 will be used often;
 
 (d) In my experience names that are slightly odd but evocative tend
 to stick to memory.
 
 So I chose "retro". What exactly seems to be the problem? If half
 of Phobos' names were weird, I'd say fine, but this discussion
 latched on poor "retro" and "iota" as if posters' lives depended on
 it. Again: how exactly are these two names preventing you from
 getting work done?
 
 
 Andrei


 
 you just refuse to get it.


Well that doesn't quite set up the stage nicely for a dialog. I 
explained you what constraints I was under when choosing one particular 
name. You then ignore the entire explanation by labeling me as 
illogically stubborn. At the same time, you keep on waxing indignant 
about a very general problem with Phobos but consistently omit to 
provide more supporting evidence than "retro" and "iota".


 It's not the specific retro function that
 is so frustrating to me. any public API (and especially so for the
 standard library) *must* have a consistent naming scheme. It *must*
 prefer clarity over shortness and it *must* be designed such that it
 will lead to easier understanding of code using it _without_
 referring to the manual every function call. phobos fails on all the
 above.


I agree that Phobos, being a palimpsest[1] on which several people 
wrote, currently mixes a number of styles and names. Would be great if 
you added some concrete details that would help us improve things. What 
would be a good example of Phobos code that is currently next to 
incomprehensible due to poor choices of names, and what would be a good 
consistent naming scheme that would improve on that?


Andrei

[1] The nerve!
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent KennyTM~ <kennytm gmail.com> writes:
On Feb 21, 10 01:03, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 yigal chripun wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Justin Johansson" <no spam.com> wrote in message
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-"
 when talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're
 uneducated, they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant
 by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but
 at some point a library has to use *some* language, and the
 established standard for phobos just happens to be english. If we
 start banning terms from use in a language or a library on the
 basis of whether a non-native english speaker is likely to know it,
 then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for certain) you'd
 have to eliminate most of the given language/library because there's
 no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.

 For instance, if there were a russian-langauge library, and I tried
 to use it, I wouldn't understand any of the words except nyet and
 da (and I'm not even sure of the correct spellings of those - in
 either roman or cyrillic). And I would be well aware that I
 wouldn't be able to assume I knew what something did without a
 little digging. Of course, I certainly sympathize that this can be
 a pain for non-native-english-speaking programmers, and that it's
 an issue native english speaking programmers like me will probably
 never be able to truly understand, but until we get to some
 hypothetcal point in the future where everyone speaks the same
 language, then, again, at some point there really is no choice but
 to just assume at least some particular language.

 Besides, computer terminology is already, at best, just a bunch of
 vague meaphors anyway. When I started programing, it took me all of
 about a minute to learn that "string" had nothing to do with the
 stuff cloth is made of and stitched together with. And "SCSI"
 doesn't mean a damn thing at all, even to an english speaker, but I
 still learned it quickly enough. So even if I wasn't familiar with
 "retro" as anything other than "old style", I'm sure I still could
 have gotten used to it very quickly, especially considering that in
 99.99% of contexts it's going to be pretty damn clear that it's not
 being used to refer to bell-bottoms, chome appliances, and
 flock-of-seagulls haircuts.


 This is being silly (and needlessly long). There's no need to collect
 statistics on the level of English of non-native D programmers
 worldwide to decide what name to use for a function.

 It's very simple actually: you want to name a function that reverses
 your range and you have several valid names for it, please choose the
 most common word (the first that comes to mind) which in this case is
 (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any variation that makes sense in this
 particular case, like "reversed")

 simple logic, don't you agree? Any human language has more than one
 way to express oneself. The best way to reach a wide (and
 international) audience is to use the most common phrases - don't go
 all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words and don't go
 getho on me with misspelled slang. Is that so much to ask for?


 There's no reason to get agitated as nobody is trying to push
 incomprehensible crap on anyone. The problem I was confronted with was:

 (a) "reverse" was already taken;


Isn't Array.reverse going to be deprecated?


 (b) I found "reversed" too subtly different from "reverse". Besides, it
 wasn't clear to me that it was descriptive enough - e.g. some people
 might believe that "reversed" returns a reversed copy of the range;


I agree the difference is subtle. I propose

   retro   -> reverse
   reverse -> inPlaceReverse

(In ObjC retro will be called reversedRange or rangeByReversingRange :p 
The, well, advantage is no one will confuse what's going on.)


 (c) I was looking for a short name because I presume the function will
 be used often;


Out of my previous programs in any languages I've seldom used 
foreach_reverse or its equivalent.

And we all use string very often yet anyone wants to look for a very 
short name e.g. str? I mean, retro is only 3 characters shorter than 
reversed or backward.


 (d) In my experience names that are slightly odd but evocative tend to
 stick to memory.

 So I chose "retro". What exactly seems to be the problem? If half of
 Phobos' names were weird, I'd say fine, but this discussion latched on
 poor "retro" and "iota" as if posters' lives depended on it. Again: how
 exactly are these two names preventing you from getting work done?


 Andrei
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"yigal chripun" <foo bar.com> wrote in message 
news:hlp3g1$1aq2$1 digitalmars.com...

 It's very simple actually:
 you want to name a function that reverses your range and you have several 
 valid names for it, please choose the most common word (the first that 
 comes to mind) which in this case is (surprise!) - "reverse". (or any 
 variation that makes sense in this particular case, like "reversed")

 simple logic, don't you agree?
 Any human language has more than one way to express oneself. The best way 
 to reach a wide (and international) audience is to use the most common 
 phrases - don't go all academic on me with Latin or Shakespearean words 
 and don't go getho on me with misspelled slang.
 Is that so much to ask for?


I certainly consider "reverse" to be a better name than "retro". No argument 
from me there. What I'm saying is just that I think people are making it out 
to be a much bigger issue than it really is. (Now, "iota", on the other 
hand...)
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply biozic <dransic free.fr> writes:
Le 20/02/10 16:17, Nick Sabalausky a ĂŠcrit :

 "Justin Johansson"<no spam.com>  wrote in message
 news:hlop1u$o1m$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Right, that's what I meant. Use a word starting with "retro-" when
 talking to a english-speaking person, and even if they're uneducated,
 they'll most likely have a good idea what is meant by that prefix.


 What about persons with English not as a first language?


 I do realize that different native languages can be an issue, but at some
 point a library has to use *some* language, and the established standard for
 phobos just happens to be english. If we start banning terms from use in a
 language or a library on the basis of whether a non-native english speaker
 is likely to know it, then I suspect (though I admit that I don't know for
 certain) you'd have to eliminate most of the given language/library because
 there's no guarantee non-native speakers would know any of it.


As a non-native english speaker, when I want to use a function I don't 
know the name of, and when I'm browsing the documentation, I must say 
that my heuristic reading overlooks things like "iota" (and perhaps 
"retro" as well) in favor of more descriptive function names.

But what I really miss is a good search engine for the documentation, 
not a function name that is perfectly relevant to my understanding. A 
list of well-chosen keywords/tags associated with every function should 
do the work (more than the present full-text search). Then, when I type 
something like "range generate step", I would get a (preferably small) 
list of functions, among which "iota" -- and I would be statisfied.

Nicolas
Feb 21 2010
parent biozic <dransic free.fr> writes:
Le 21/02/10 13:17, biozic a ĂŠcrit :

 But what I really miss is a good search engine for the documentation,
 not a function name that is perfectly relevant to my understanding. A
 list of well-chosen keywords/tags associated with every function should
 do the work (more than the present full-text search). Then, when I type
 something like "range generate step", I would get a (preferably small)
 list of functions, among which "iota" -- and I would be statisfied.

 Nicolas


I can see that this is actually being taken care of!!
Great!
Feb 21 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply KennyTM~ <kennytm gmail.com> writes:
On Feb 20, 10 11:31, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always
 reminds us that a proper closure inlining support would make
 collection algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack
 Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like
 a and b.


 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward”
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.


 My understanding is that he included it to clarify that it's an
 appropriate word, not to explain a rare word such as "nefandous".


 That's tantamount to what you are saying. imho, use of "silly"
 words like this in the language are a retrograde step.


 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota"
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference?
 Talk to me.


 Andrei


Major silly names:

  - std.file.slurp
  - std.iterator.retro, std.range.retro
  - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)
  - std.range.cons
  - std.range.iota
  - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop
  - std.string.munch
  - std.string.sformat
  - std.utf.stride (which is totally different from std.range.stride)

Minor annoyances:

  - std.contracts.enforceEx (sounds like Win32 API which you should use 
in favor of enforce.)
  - std.path.rel2abs (why not relToAbs?)
  - std.range.sameHead (should be sameFront?)
  - std.stream.Stream.readBlock & writeBlock (sounds like blocking vs 
non-blocking operations, esp. for SocketStream.)
  - and many inconsistent naming conventions, e.g.
     * std.string.ljustify vs stripl
     * std.string.countchars (all lower) vs inPattern (CamelCase)
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
Let's try to get some alternative names proposed so maybe we can reach
a compromise. I say we throw stuff out there and see what sticks.


  Side note: there should be some magic thing that lets you punch in
  a symbol, and immediately go to the docs.

  Actually, I'll do it now.

  http://arsdnet.net/dcode/find.php

  Source at the bottom of this message.

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:16:48PM +0800, KennyTM~ wrote:

 Major silly names:
 
  - std.file.slurp


formattedReadAll? Not quite the same as readf() (as in opposite of writef),
but close.


  - std.iterator.retro, std.range.retro


inReverse()


  - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


proportional()


  - std.range.cons


prepend()


  - std.range.iota


step()


  - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop


cutOffEnd, cutOffBeginning, cutOffTrailingNewline

blargh, I really prefer chomp to those.


  - std.string.munch


skipPattern()

eat() <- probably what I would have called it in my own code...


  - std.string.sformat


I've never even wanted to do that; let a performance optimization keep
its little name.


  - std.utf.stride (which is totally different from std.range.stride)


sequenceLength?



  - std.contracts.enforceEx (sounds like Win32 API which you should use 
 in favor of enforce.)


Can it be combined into enforce, using a default parameter for the
exception?


  - std.stream.Stream.readBlock & writeBlock (sounds like blocking vs 
 non-blocking operations, esp. for SocketStream.)


I like these, but maybe readDataBlock?

What I'd prefer to do is if there are blocking vs nonblocking, use

readBlocking -- the 'ing' would be important. Or better yet make it a
parameter passed in.


  - std.path.rel2abs (why not relToAbs?)
  - std.range.sameHead (should be sameFront?)
  - and many inconsistent naming conventions, e.g.
     * std.string.ljustify vs stripl
     * std.string.countchars (all lower) vs inPattern (CamelCase)


Agreed on these.


find.php source
=================
<?php
        if(isset($_GET['symbol'])) {
                $version = $_GET['version'] == '2.0' ? '2.0' : '1.0';

                $name = strtolower($_GET['symbol']);
                $name = preg_replace('[^a-z0-9_\.]', '', $name);
                $module = substr($name, 0, strrpos($name, '.'));
                $function = substr($name, strrpos($name, '.') + 1);

                $module = str_replace('.', '_', $module);

                $url =


                header("Location: $url");
                //echo $url;
                exit;
        }
?>
<html>
<head>
        <title>Find D Symbol</title>
</head>
<body onload="document.getElementById('symbol').focus();">

<h1>D Doc finder</h1>

<p>Enter the full name of the symbol in here. Example: <tt>std.file.read</tt>
or <tt>std.string.indexOf</tt>.</p>

<table>
<form>
<tr>
        <th>D version</th>
        <td><input name="version" value="1.0" type="radio" /> 1.0
        <br><input name="version" value="2.0" checked type="radio" /> 2.0
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Symbol:</th>
<td><input id="symbol" name="symbol" size="40" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>&nbsp;</th>
<td><input type="submit" value="Go to" /></td>
</tr>
</form>
</table>


</body>
</html>


================

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Pelle_M=E5nsson?= <pelle.mansson gmail.com> writes:
On 02/20/2010 04:34 PM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

    Side note: there should be some magic thing that lets you punch in
    a symbol, and immediately go to the docs.

    Actually, I'll do it now.

    http://arsdnet.net/dcode/find.php

    Source at the bottom of this message.


Wonderful!


 On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:16:48PM +0800, KennyTM~ wrote:

 Major silly names:

   - std.file.slurp


 formattedReadAll? Not quite the same as readf() (as in opposite of writef),
 but close.


Ew. I like slurp more. I find slurp to be an excellent name, actually.


   - std.range.cons


 prepend()


And stop calling first() car()? And rest() cdr()? Where will the madness 
end?


   - std.string.munch


 skipPattern()

 eat()<- probably what I would have called it in my own code...


munch is better than eat, in my opinion. I like munch.
Feb 20 2010
parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 05:08:55PM +0100, Pelle Mĺnsson wrote:

 Wonderful!


Now also up at http://dpldocs.info - you stick the symbol at the end,
so dpldocs.info/std.string.chomp brings you right there.


 Ew. I like slurp more. I find slurp to be an excellent name, actually.


I'm ok with it too. At first, though, I'd expect it to do what std.file.read
does; just slurp it right up into plain memory.


 munch is better than eat, in my opinion. I like munch.


Yea. It needs to be looked up once, but is easily memorable after that.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.71.1266679989.4461.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

  - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop


 cutOffEnd, cutOffBeginning, cutOffTrailingNewline

 blargh, I really prefer chomp to those.


How about just trim? That's pretty typical.

trim, trimLeft, trimRight

or maybe 'strip'.
Feb 20 2010
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:mailman.71.1266679989.4461.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

  - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop


 cutOffEnd, cutOffBeginning, cutOffTrailingNewline

 blargh, I really prefer chomp to those.


 
 How about just trim? That's pretty typical.
 
 trim, trimLeft, trimRight
 
 or maybe 'strip'.


strip is already present.

Andrei
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:34:42AM -0500, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

   Side note: there should be some magic thing that lets you punch in
   a symbol, and immediately go to the docs.
 
   Actually, I'll do it now.
 
   http://arsdnet.net/dcode/find.php
 
   Source at the bottom of this message.


I should have tested the example I gave before sending...


                 $name = strtolower($_GET['symbol']);


The strtolower should be cut out; "indexof" != "indexOf". Duh. So we have


                 $name = $_GET['symbol'];


In its place.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
KennyTM~ wrote:

 On Feb 20, 10 11:31, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always
 reminds us that a proper closure inlining support would make
 collection algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack
 Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like
 a and b.


 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward”
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.


 My understanding is that he included it to clarify that it's an
 appropriate word, not to explain a rare word such as "nefandous".


 That's tantamount to what you are saying. imho, use of "silly"
 words like this in the language are a retrograde step.


 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota"
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference?
 Talk to me.


 Andrei


 
 Major silly names:
 
  - std.file.slurp


http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Perl6-Slurp-0.03/Slurp.pm
http://code.google.com/p/python-pipeline/wiki/slurp


  - std.iterator.retro, std.range.retro


Some arond here seem to be very comfortable about it. Anyway, let's find 
another one (can't be "reverse").


  - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


What's wrong with dice?


  - std.range.cons


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cons


  - std.range.iota


C++, APL, Go:

http://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/446688-iota
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota


  - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop


http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/chomp.html
http://www.pageresource.com/cgirec/ptut13.htm
http://php.net/manual/en/function.chop.php
http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/String.html#M000819


  - std.string.munch


Inspired from here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximal_munch


  - std.string.sformat


Alternative?


  - std.utf.stride (which is totally different from std.range.stride)


Agreed. Alternative?


 Minor annoyances:
 
  - std.contracts.enforceEx (sounds like Win32 API which you should use 
 in favor of enforce.)


Agreed. Alternative?


  - std.path.rel2abs (why not relToAbs?)


It's shorter and apparently there's no trouble in understanding it.


  - std.range.sameHead (should be sameFront?)


Agreed.


  - std.stream.Stream.readBlock & writeBlock (sounds like blocking vs 
 non-blocking operations, esp. for SocketStream.)


std.stream will be terminated.


  - and many inconsistent naming conventions, e.g.
     * std.string.ljustify vs stripl
     * std.string.countchars (all lower) vs inPattern (CamelCase)


This is Walter's experiment of wheelbarrowing string functions from 
several languages into std.string. I'd like to fix that.


Andrei
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 10:41:33AM -0600, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Some arond here seem to be very comfortable about it. Anyway, let's find 
 another one (can't be "reverse").


inReverse() is the best that comes to my mind. I see a lot of the range
functions as adjectives rather than verbs or nouns in the way they work,
something that might be useful to keep in mind when naming them.

retro() is perfect in that sense, IMO. inReverse is a close synonym.


 It's shorter and apparently there's no trouble in understanding it.


Understanding words is relatively easy; the human brain can make sense
out of a lot of gibberish.

In this case, the trouble would be when writing it. With a consistent
pattern, you always spell words the same way and use the same
capitalization, making writing it easy. Same argument order helps here too.

rel2abs is easy to read, but if you don't use it often, your first guess
would be to follow the same pattern as the rest of the lib, which is more
like relToAbs.

Not a big deal, but an annoyance.

PHP is inconsistent in every way here, and is one of the biggest problems
I have with it - not a small statement, considering PHP's wealth of problems!

I write str_replace and it works. Next line, I do str_tolower... and it doesn't
work. Now I have to look it up in the docs - is it strtolower? str2lower?
tolower? toLowerCase? Too many to guess and check.


Just a pain in the ass. D avoids it mostly, but should strive to avoid it
entirely. rel2abs is a tiny, minor example, but we don't want to let it grow
into a bigger mess down the line. Best to change it now while we easily can.


 Andrei


-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply KennyTM~ <kennytm gmail.com> writes:
On Feb 21, 10 00:41, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 KennyTM~ wrote:

 Major silly names:

 - std.file.slurp


 http://search.cpan.org/~dconway/Perl6-Slurp-0.03/Slurp.pm
 http://code.google.com/p/python-pipeline/wiki/slurp


It maybe very common in Perl, but a name used by one or two 
languages/non-standard libraries cannot be a proof that it's a good name 
or widely used outside that circle.

(I prefer "readLines" or "parseLines")


 - std.iterator.retro, std.range.retro


 Some arond here seem to be very comfortable about it. Anyway, let's find
 another one (can't be "reverse").


 - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


 What's wrong with dice?


The name, it sounds silly, that's it ;) (My alternatives will be very 
long and you won't use it anyway.)


 - std.range.cons


 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cons


As if I knew Lisp. (See slurp) ("prepend")


 - std.range.iota


 C++, APL, Go:

 http://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/446688-iota
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota


Shall we rename "cos" to "circle(2, x)"? (See slurp)

("range", or make a..b into a range.)


 - std.string.chomp, chompPrefix, chop


 http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/chomp.html
 http://www.pageresource.com/cgirec/ptut13.htm
 http://php.net/manual/en/function.chop.php
 http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/String.html#M000819


OK.


 - std.string.munch


 Inspired from here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximal_munch


"match". Or "parsePattern" as used in std.metastrings. (Or rename them 
into "munchInteger"?)


 - std.string.sformat


 Alternative?


"formatBuffer". What does the "s" mean anyway?


 - std.utf.stride (which is totally different from std.range.stride)


 Agreed. Alternative?


"sequenceLength", "codePointLength", or rename std.range.stride to "skip".


 Minor annoyances:

 - std.contracts.enforceEx (sounds like Win32 API which you should use
 in favor of enforce.)


 Agreed. Alternative?


"exceptionEnforce", similar to "errnoEnforce".


 - std.path.rel2abs (why not relToAbs?)


 It's shorter and apparently there's no trouble in understanding it.


I agree.


 - std.range.sameHead (should be sameFront?)


 Agreed.


 - std.stream.Stream.readBlock & writeBlock (sounds like blocking vs
 non-blocking operations, esp. for SocketStream.)


 std.stream will be terminated.


OK.


 - and many inconsistent naming conventions, e.g.
 * std.string.ljustify vs stripl
 * std.string.countchars (all lower) vs inPattern (CamelCase)


 This is Walter's experiment of wheelbarrowing string functions from
 several languages into std.string. I'd like to fix that.


Nice to know that.


 Andrei
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"KennyTM~" <kennytm gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hlpe64$1uvn$1 digitalmars.com...

 On Feb 21, 10 00:41, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 KennyTM~ wrote:

 - std.utf.stride (which is totally different from std.range.stride)


 Agreed. Alternative?


 "sequenceLength", "codePointLength", or rename std.range.stride to "skip".


"Code Point" and "Code Unit" are standard Unicode terminology. I would find 
it good for them to be used where appropriate.
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"KennyTM~" <kennytm gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:hlpe64$1uvn$1 digitalmars.com...

 On Feb 21, 10 00:41, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 KennyTM~ wrote:

 - std.string.sformat


 Alternative?


 "formatBuffer". What does the "s" mean anyway?


"string".  I assume the name "sformat" was modeled after the "sprintf" 
variant of "printf".
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2010-02-20 20:32:03 -0500, "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> said:


 "KennyTM~" <kennytm gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:hlpe64$1uvn$1 digitalmars.com...

 On Feb 21, 10 00:41, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 KennyTM~ wrote:

 
 - std.string.sformat


 
 Alternative?


 
 "formatBuffer". What does the "s" mean anyway?


 
 "string".  I assume the name "sformat" was modeled after the "sprintf"
 variant of "printf".


I'd say go with just "format". That'd make the fully qualified name is 
"std.string.format", no need to repeat "string" a second time, even if 
it's just an "s".

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Feb 20 2010
parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 09:11:32PM -0500, Michel Fortin wrote:

 I'd say go with just "format". That'd make the fully qualified name is 
 "std.string.format", no need to repeat "string" a second time, even if 
 it's just an "s".


There's already a format() function - it returns a dynamically allocated
string for the result.

The difference with sformat() is it takes a buffer in, instead of allocating
its own. The only use for sformat that I can think of over regular format()
is to boost performance in certain special cases; it wouldn't be used
regularly.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2010-02-20 23:21:01 -0500, "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> said:


 On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 09:11:32PM -0500, Michel Fortin wrote:

 I'd say go with just "format". That'd make the fully qualified name is
 "std.string.format", no need to repeat "string" a second time, even if
 it's just an "s".


 
 There's already a format() function - it returns a dynamically allocated
 string for the result.
 
 The difference with sformat() is it takes a buffer in, instead of allocating
 its own. The only use for sformat that I can think of over regular format()
 is to boost performance in certain special cases; it wouldn't be used
 regularly.


Ah, I see. Normally, that'd be a great case for overloading, but format 
being variadic and accepting any argument type makes this impractical.

I'd say "formatInBuffer" looks like a viable alternative. It's clear, 
it's also longer but assuming its use is sparse a descriptive name 
might be beneficial.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Feb 21 2010
parent Mike James <foo bar.com> writes:
Michel Fortin Wrote:


 On 2010-02-20 23:21:01 -0500, "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> said:
 

 On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 09:11:32PM -0500, Michel Fortin wrote:

 I'd say go with just "format". That'd make the fully qualified name is
 "std.string.format", no need to repeat "string" a second time, even if
 it's just an "s".


 
 There's already a format() function - it returns a dynamically allocated
 string for the result.
 
 The difference with sformat() is it takes a buffer in, instead of allocating
 its own. The only use for sformat that I can think of over regular format()
 is to boost performance in certain special cases; it wouldn't be used
 regularly.


 
 Ah, I see. Normally, that'd be a great case for overloading, but format 
 being variadic and accepting any argument type makes this impractical.
 
 I'd say "formatInBuffer" looks like a viable alternative. It's clear, 
 it's also longer but assuming its use is sparse a descriptive name 
 might be beneficial.
 
 -- 
 Michel Fortin
 michel.fortin michelf.com
 http://michelf.com/
 


Your thinking in Pascal - stop it at once ;-)

-=mike=-
Feb 21 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:hlp3bv$1als$1 digitalmars.com...

 KennyTM~ wrote:

 Major silly names:

  - std.iterator.retro, std.range.retro


 Some arond here seem to be very comfortable about it. Anyway, let's find 
 another one (can't be "reverse").


"reverseOf"?



  - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


 What's wrong with dice?


I like it, but I can definitely understand that some people might find its 
meaning too indirect. Maybe "std.random.discrete" or "std.random.even" or 
"std.random.regular" or somethingliek that?



  - std.range.iota


 C++, APL, Go:

 http://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/446688-iota
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iota


Could it be an overload of "sequence"? It looks to me like it's just a 
special case of sequence.




 Minor annoyances:

  - std.contracts.enforceEx (sounds like Win32 API which you should use in 
 favor of enforce.)


 Agreed. Alternative?


"enforceException"?



  - std.path.rel2abs (why not relToAbs?)


 It's shorter and apparently there's no trouble in understanding it.


It's cute. But that's probably more of a downside. I agree with the other 
person who said "To" would be much more consistent.
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 

  - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


 What's wrong with dice?


 
 I like it, but I can definitely understand that some people might find its 
 meaning too indirect. Maybe "std.random.discrete" or "std.random.even" or 
 "std.random.regular" or somethingliek that?
 


If cuteness in a word is at all a relevant factor in deciding upon
a name how about

std.random.dip

Justin's etymology of "dip":

1. Derived from "lucky dip", meaning to draw an item (often a prize)
randomly from a container (often a barrel at a fair or carnival).

2. Derived by contraction of serendipity or serendipitous.

The idea of generating a "serendipitous number" as opposed to generating
(just a) PORN (Plain Old Random Number) by all measures has got to be
cute.  Just so happens, serendipitous in fact, that "serendipitous" is 
one of my favorite words.  It's also a pure fluke that the acronym for
Plain Old Random Number turns out be what it is .. I was thinking of
Plain Old Java Object POJO when that came to mind.  :-)


See also (the first link is quite an interesting read)

http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2006/12/03/seredipitous-etymology

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Serendipity


Cheers

Justin Johansson
Feb 20 2010
parent reply KennyTM~ <kennytm gmail.com> writes:
On Feb 21, 10 10:04, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


 What's wrong with dice?


 I like it, but I can definitely understand that some people might find
 its meaning too indirect. Maybe "std.random.discrete" or
 "std.random.even" or "std.random.regular" or somethingliek that?


 If cuteness in a word is at all a relevant factor in deciding upon
 a name how about

 std.random.dip

 Justin's etymology of "dip":

 1. Derived from "lucky dip", meaning to draw an item (often a prize)
 randomly from a container (often a barrel at a fair or carnival).

 2. Derived by contraction of serendipity or serendipitous.

 The idea of generating a "serendipitous number" as opposed to generating
 (just a) PORN (Plain Old Random Number) by all measures has got to be
 cute. Just so happens, serendipitous in fact, that "serendipitous" is
 one of my favorite words. It's also a pure fluke that the acronym for
 Plain Old Random Number turns out be what it is .. I was thinking of
 Plain Old Java Object POJO when that came to mind. :-)


 See also (the first link is quite an interesting read)

 http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2006/12/03/seredipitous-etymology


 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Serendipity


 Cheers

 Justin Johansson


I think any function names that needs to tell user a story or dictionary 
definition before knowing why it is chosen is a bad name.
Feb 20 2010
parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
KennyTM~ wrote:

 On Feb 21, 10 10:04, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 - std.random.dice (it is a discrete distribution...)


 What's wrong with dice?


 I like it, but I can definitely understand that some people might find
 its meaning too indirect. Maybe "std.random.discrete" or
 "std.random.even" or "std.random.regular" or somethingliek that?


 If cuteness in a word is at all a relevant factor in deciding upon
 a name how about

 std.random.dip

 Justin's etymology of "dip":

 1. Derived from "lucky dip", meaning to draw an item (often a prize)
 randomly from a container (often a barrel at a fair or carnival).

 2. Derived by contraction of serendipity or serendipitous.

 The idea of generating a "serendipitous number" as opposed to generating
 (just a) PORN (Plain Old Random Number) by all measures has got to be
 cute. Just so happens, serendipitous in fact, that "serendipitous" is
 one of my favorite words. It's also a pure fluke that the acronym for
 Plain Old Random Number turns out be what it is .. I was thinking of
 Plain Old Java Object POJO when that came to mind. :-)


 See also (the first link is quite an interesting read)

 http://serendipity.ruwenzori.net/index.php/2006/12/03/seredipitous-etymology 



 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=Serendipity


 Cheers

 Justin Johansson


 
 I think any function names that needs to tell user a story or dictionary 
 definition before knowing why it is chosen is a bad name.


Sorry; I didn't mean this "suggestion" to be taken too seriously; just
a little (possibly lame) humour and an ultra-subtle parody on
choosing library names based upon their cuteness factor or how much
they "rock".

I couldn't agree more that the meaning of function names should be
self-evident (at least to a reasonable degreee) without having to
consult a dictionary.

For me, Norbert Nemec pretty much sums it up in his spin-off
thread "Design of intuitive interfaces".
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 KennyTM~ wrote:

  - std.range.iota


=20
 C++, APL, Go:
=20


	Actually, APL doesn't use "iota" but "=CE=B9" which translates as "i".
So since we don't want to introduce impossible-to-type characters in
D, we should rename std.range.iota to std.range.i ;)

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Feb 21 2010
prev sibling parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 This is the third time I'm asking: what is a list of allegedly silly 
 names in phobos? Far as I can tell the case against "retro" and "iota" 
 is rather tenuous. So what are others? readText? topN? setDifference? 
 Talk to me.


Well, there you go.  You have teased it out.  Aside from retro and itoa,
KennyTM has come up with a list for your due consideration.  Congrats
Kenny for the list and congrats Andrei for persisting the question for
a third time.  Sorry I wasn't more helpful. -- Justin
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
On 20/02/2010 05:03, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds
 us that a proper closure inlining support would make collection
 algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way
 you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like a and b.


 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward”
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.
 That's tantamount to what you are saying. imho, use of "silly"
 words like this in the language are a retrograde step.

 Cheers

 Justin Johansson


Hum, didn't you mean a link to a *Latin* dictionary? ;)
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 On 20/02/2010 05:03, Justin Johansson wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message
 news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was
 designed by larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?

 Because of silly symbol names like 'retro' I think there's more
 reason for someone to not like Phobos. Bearophile also always reminds
 us that a proper closure inlining support would make collection
 algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack Phobos. That way
 you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like a and b.


 Dictionary.com Unabridged, Based on the Random House Dictionary:

 retro-

 a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin meaning “backward”
 (retrogress); on this model, used in the formation of compound words
 (retrorocket).

 So can we stop this "retro is a bad name" nonsense now?


 Sure, just include a copy of, or link to, an English dictionary
 alongside D documentation, together with appropriate annotations.
 That's tantamount to what you are saying. imho, use of "silly"
 words like this in the language are a retrograde step.

 Cheers

 Justin Johansson


 
 Hum, didn't you mean a link to a *Latin* dictionary? ;)


You are quite correct to pull me up on that one.  I guess to
be more specific I should have said a post-classical Latin
dictionary in which occurrence of said "retro" is more common.

btw. (and you gotta blow your trumpet sometimes) I won
First Prize for Latin at secondary college :-)
Feb 20 2010
parent reply =?windows-1252?Q?=22J=E9r=F4me_M=2E_Berger=22?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Justin Johansson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Hum, didn't you mean a link to a *Latin* dictionary? ;)


=20
 You are quite correct to pull me up on that one.  I guess to
 be more specific I should have said a post-classical Latin
 dictionary in which occurrence of said "retro" is more common.
=20
 btw. (and you gotta blow your trumpet sometimes) I won
 First Prize for Latin at secondary college :-)
=20


	Hum, except that both "retro" and "iota" are actually Greek, not
Latin...

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Feb 20 2010
parent reply Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
JĂŠrĂ´me M. Berger wrote:

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Hum, didn't you mean a link to a *Latin* dictionary? ;)


 You are quite correct to pull me up on that one.  I guess to
 be more specific I should have said a post-classical Latin
 dictionary in which occurrence of said "retro" is more common.

 btw. (and you gotta blow your trumpet sometimes) I won
 First Prize for Latin at secondary college :-)


 	Hum, except that both "retro" and "iota" are actually Greek, not
 Latin...
 
 		Jerome


I don't give an iota about iota.  In my dictionary retro is a
Latin prefix.  However in post-classical Latin it is not uncommon
to come across words that have a Greek origin.  Me thinks we are
both right on this occasion; retro is a Latin prefix; it's in a
Latin dictionary and its etymology appears to have a Greek connection.

retro- pref. repr. L. retrō- adv. (‘behind’) used in combination as in 
retrospicere (cf. RETROSPECT), retrogradus (see next), f. RE- + compar. 
suffix as in intrō- INTRO-; in anat. and path. denoting ‘situated 
behind’ the part of the body indicated by the second el., as 
retro-ocular, -uterine.

T. F. HOAD. "retro-." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English 
Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 20, 2010). 
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-retro.html


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=retro-

http://ewonago.wordpress.com/what-is-the-relation-between-latin-and-greek/

http://ewonago.blogspot.com/2009/12/etymology-of-retro.html
Feb 20 2010
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Justin Johansson wrote:

 JĂŠrĂ´me M. Berger wrote:

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Hum, didn't you mean a link to a *Latin* dictionary? ;)


 You are quite correct to pull me up on that one.  I guess to
 be more specific I should have said a post-classical Latin
 dictionary in which occurrence of said "retro" is more common.

 btw. (and you gotta blow your trumpet sometimes) I won
 First Prize for Latin at secondary college :-)


     Hum, except that both "retro" and "iota" are actually Greek, not
 Latin...

         Jerome


 
 I don't give an iota about iota.  In my dictionary retro is a
 Latin prefix.  However in post-classical Latin it is not uncommon
 to come across words that have a Greek origin.  Me thinks we are
 both right on this occasion; retro is a Latin prefix; it's in a
 Latin dictionary and its etymology appears to have a Greek connection.
 
 retro- pref. repr. L. retrō- adv. (‘behind’) used in combination as in 
 retrospicere (cf. RETROSPECT), retrogradus (see next), f. RE- + compar. 
 suffix as in intrō- INTRO-; in anat. and path. denoting ‘situated 
 behind’ the part of the body indicated by the second el., as 
 retro-ocular, -uterine.
 
 T. F. HOAD. "retro-." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English 
 Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 20, 2010). 
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-retro.html
 
 
 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=retro-
 
 http://ewonago.wordpress.com/what-is-the-relation-between-latin-and-greek/
 
 http://ewonago.blogspot.com/2009/12/etymology-of-retro.html
 


retro and iota rock.

Andrei
Feb 20 2010
parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 retro and iota rock.


This discussion has been a lot of fun and certainly there is no need
for anyone to feel agitated (referring to rising temperature earlier
on in this discussion).  My life does not depend on whether or not
retro is in or out and nor does the choice of any particular word
prevent me from getting work done.

While I disagree that retro == reverse order, I'm happy to admit that
as far as words sound retro is kind of "cute".  Earlier though I argued
that retro in the context of its proposed use is, to me , more about
going back to a prior epoch on time which is distinct from doing
things in reverse order.

Given it's high "cuticity index" (to coin a term) it would be a
pity, if some future version of D supporting Software Transactional
Memory (STM)*** could not make use of retro as it was already taken
for much lesser deserving purposes.

*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_transactional_memory

<sidebar>
Snippet from that link:

In 2005, Tim Harris, Simon Marlow, Simon Peyton Jones, and Maurice 
Herlihy described an STM system built on Concurrent Haskell that enables 
arbitrary atomic operations to be composed into larger atomic 
operations, a useful concept impossible with lock-based programming.
</sidebar>

Now I know that is a tenuous argument to reserve a word for some
pie-in-the-sky future language feature but imagine how cool this
sounds:

Dec 2012. News flash.

Digital Mars is pleased to announce release 3 of the D programming
language featuring Software Transactional Memory ...
... the retro() function makes all changes to the transacted
memory region rollback to the state of the memory that existed
prior to the beginning of the transaction.

Now something like that would really rock!

Heh, all of this is probably a useless ramble and can see myself
getting way out of depth real soon.

With kind regards to all,

Justin
Feb 20 2010
prev sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Justin Johansson wrote:

 I don't give an iota about iota.  In my dictionary retro is a
 Latin prefix.  However in post-classical Latin it is not uncommon
 to come across words that have a Greek origin.  Me thinks we are
 both right on this occasion; retro is a Latin prefix; it's in a
 Latin dictionary and its etymology appears to have a Greek connection.
=20
 retro- pref. repr. L. retr=C5=8D- adv. (=E2=80=98behind=E2=80=99) used =


in combination as in

 retrospicere (cf. RETROSPECT), retrogradus (see next), f. RE- + compar.=



 suffix as in intr=C5=8D- INTRO-; in anat. and path. denoting =E2=80=98s=


ituated

 behind=E2=80=99 the part of the body indicated by the second el., as
 retro-ocular, -uterine.
=20
 T. F. HOAD. "retro-." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English
 Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 20, 2010).
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-retro.html
=20


	Well my source for "retro" was this (in French):
http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=3Dretro which
definitely states it has a Greek origin. However, you are right that
Latin did borrow a lot of Greek words so it could have come to us
through Latin.

	For "iota" my source was the 1980 edition of the "petit Larousse en
couleurs" dictionary. I don't think that one went through Latin
though...

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
Feb 21 2010
parent Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:
JĂŠrĂ´me M. Berger wrote:

 Justin Johansson wrote:

 I don't give an iota about iota.  In my dictionary retro is a
 Latin prefix.  However in post-classical Latin it is not uncommon
 to come across words that have a Greek origin.  Me thinks we are
 both right on this occasion; retro is a Latin prefix; it's in a
 Latin dictionary and its etymology appears to have a Greek connection.

 retro- pref. repr. L. retrō- adv. (‘behind’) used in combination as in
 retrospicere (cf. RETROSPECT), retrogradus (see next), f. RE- + compar.
 suffix as in intrō- INTRO-; in anat. and path. denoting ‘situated
 behind’ the part of the body indicated by the second el., as
 retro-ocular, -uterine.

 T. F. HOAD. "retro-." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English
 Etymology. 1996. Encyclopedia.com. (February 20, 2010).
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-retro.html


 	Well my source for "retro" was this (in French):
 http://www.le-dictionnaire.com/definition.php?mot=retro which
 definitely states it has a Greek origin. However, you are right that
 Latin did borrow a lot of Greek words so it could have come to us
 through Latin.
 
 	For "iota" my source was the 1980 edition of the "petit Larousse en
 couleurs" dictionary. I don't think that one went through Latin
 though...
 
 		Jerome


Jerome, I think you are correct.

I o'ta know that.  :-)

(I ought to know that.)

Cheers
Justin
Feb 21 2010
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"dave eveloper" <tango land.net> wrote in message 
news:hlm402$1mr0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Ezneh Wrote:


 So, it is not better to find a compromise between these libraries ?
 Why they have to be "two" libraries rather than one which was designed by 
 larsivi, Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu ?


 I haven't seen larsivi around lately. Is it possible that there's a 
 communication problem? Perhaps a personality mismatch?


He mainly hangs around the Tango forums.


 Bearophile also always reminds us that a proper closure inlining support 
 would make collection algorithms as fast as the ugly string template hack 
 Phobos. That way you wouldn't have hard coded parameter symbols like a and 
 b.


I like having the option of pre-defined param symbols for closures. If a 
closure is trivial enough, then manually defining a custom-name can be 
overkill (but with D2's additional syntax suger for anon closures, it's not 
that big of a deal).

The problem I do have with it though, is that they're evaluated in the wrong 
scope.
Feb 19 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent Nick B <"nick_NOSPAM_.barbalich" gmail.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 Putting even more carts before their horses ---
 
 Will Tango move from D1 to D2 when D2 is "frozen"?
 
 More accurately, I guess, when Walter declares D2 stable and starts on D3?


That is that plan that has/is been discussed by the tango community.

Nick B
Feb 18 2010
prev sibling parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 Putting even more carts before their horses ---
 
 Will Tango move from D1 to D2 when D2 is "frozen"?
 
 More accurately, I guess, when Walter declares D2 stable and starts on D3?


Hopefully Walter will first finish D1, then finish D2, then start on D3. 
  But what's the likelihood that he'll do the latter two in that order?

Stewart.
Feb 18 2010
parent Norbert Nemec <Norbert Nemec-online.de> writes:
Stewart Gordon wrote:

 Paul D. Anderson wrote:

 Putting even more carts before their horses ---

 Will Tango move from D1 to D2 when D2 is "frozen"?

 More accurately, I guess, when Walter declares D2 stable and starts on 
 D3?


 
 Hopefully Walter will first finish D1, then finish D2, then start on D3. 
  But what's the likelihood that he'll do the latter two in that order?


Maybe, Walter should make more use of the nice language feature 
"delegate"? :-)
Feb 20 2010