Stupid little iota of an idea

[Olivier Pisano]

Le 09/02/2011 21:08, Ary Manzana a écrit :
> On 2/9/11 3:54 PM, bearophile wrote:
>> - There is no need to learn to use a function with a weird syntax like
>> iota, coming from APL. This makes Phobos and learning D a bit simpler.
>
> I would recommend stop using "weird" names for functions. Sorry if this
> sounds a little harsh but the only reason I see this function is called
> "iota" is to demonstrate knowledge (or to sound cool). But programmers
> using a language don't care about whether the other programmer
> demonstrates knowledge behind a function name, they just want to get
> things done, fast.
>
> I mean, if I want to create a range of numbers I would search "range".
> "iota" will never, ever come to my mind. D has to be more open to
> public, not only to people who programmed in APL, Go or are mathematics
> freaks. Guess how a range is called in Ruby? That's right, Range.
>
> Another example: retro. The documentation says "iterates a bidirectional
> name backwards". Hm, where does "retro" appear in that text? If I want
> to iterate it backwards, or to reverse the order, the first thing I
> would write is reverse(range) or backwards(range), "retro" would never
> come to my mind.
>
> (and no, replies like "you can always alias xxx" are not accepted :-P)

Hi,

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

Cheers,

Olivier.