Stupid little iota of an idea

Daniel Gibson metalcaedes at gmail.com
Fri Feb 11 20:02:25 PST 2011


Am 12.02.2011 04:49, schrieb spir:
> On 02/12/2011 02:36 AM, Daniel Gibson wrote:
>> Am 12.02.2011 02:25, schrieb bearophile:
>>> Michel Fortin:
>>>
>>>> No one noticed yet that the a..b:c syntax causes ambiguity? Tell me,
>>>> how do you rewrite this using the new proposed syntax:
>>>>
>>>>     auto aa = [iota(a, b, c): 1, iota(d, e): 2];
>>>
>>> Right, that's why in another post I have said that syntax replaces most iota
>>> usages. There are some situations where you can't use it well. This is
>>> another situation I've shown in the enhancement request:
>>> iota(10.,20.)
>>> Writing it like this is not sane:
>>>   10...20.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Interval is clear only as long as there's no step value mentioned.
>>>> Having a step value is quite a stretch from the usual notion of an
>>>> interval.
>>>
>>> Right, but I think it's acceptable still, and better than iota.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I like a lot so's suggestion "walk". I'm not sure it's much clearer
>>>> than iota though.
>>>
>>> It's better than iota, but not by much.
>>>
>>> Bye,
>>> bearophile
>>
>> I think it's much better. Even having "steps" (or a stepsize) is obvious with
>> walk.
>>
>> iota only makes sense when you know this from other languages/libraries or if
>> your native spoken language has a similar word that can be somehow connected.
>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/iota doesn't give a real connection (and two
>> English->German dictionaries I've checked don't either - one only listed iota as
>> the greek letter, the other had mentions about something tiny) - it's just
>> something small like that greek i-without-a-dot letter.
>> There's nothing that connects it to a range of values with a fixed step size.
> 
> That page looks listing various meanings in foreign languages, but mostly
> stincks with the greek letter; it does not mention any sense everday sense iota
> actually has. Example fro fr.wiktionary:
> 
> # Nom de ι, Ι, neuvième lettre et quatrième voyelle de l’alphabet grec.
> Équivalent du i latin.
> # Petite quantité négligeable, presque rien.
> 
> Free translation: little negligible quantity, nearly nothing.
> There are good chances iota has a similar meaning in numerous languages,
> especially romance ones. Bearophile, Andrei?
> 
> Denis

I don't think a iota representing something small is too helpful.
iota() produces a (possibly very long) range of values with a possibly huge step
size (but even with a fixed step size of one it wouldn't make much sense to me).

Cheers,
- Daniel


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