Stupid little iota of an idea

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Saturday 12 February 2011 06:21:15 bearophile wrote:
> Jonathan M Davis:
> > On Saturday 12 February 2011 03:25:29 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> > > And that's part of what makes it best.
> > 
> > Agreed.
> 
> If you agree on that, then you can't be a designer for a public API.

I'm not saying that you should typically pick function names that way. But given 
that we already have iota, have already had iota for some time, and that there 
is already a C++ function by the same name that does the same thing, I see no 
reason to change it. It's nice and memorable, and it doesn't create confusion 
based on misunderstanding its name. Sure, a name that clearly says what it does 
would be nice, but I don't really like any of the names that have been 
suggested, and iota has worked just fine thus far.

I'm not suggesting that we go and name functions sigma and gamma or xyzzy or 
whatnot just because they mean nothing and are memorable. I'm saying that 
because we already have a function name which is memorable, I see no reason to 
exchange for one less memorable just because the name is nonsensical. It's 
useful in well-used functions to have short, memorable names, and iota fits that 
to a t.

- Jonathan M Davis