Stupid little iota of an idea

[Max Samukha]

On 02/10/2011 05:18 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 2/10/11 12:30 AM, Olivier Pisano wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Fifth result of simply googling the entire Web for "iota":
>
> http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/iota.html
>
>
> Andrei

Google search takes your preferences into account. They must be tracking 
your search history, peeking into your gmail accounts etc. I searched 
for 'iota' and couldn't find the STL link on the first 5 pages.