Arbitrary abbreviations in phobos considered ridiculous

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:51:59 -0500, Ary Manzana <ary at esperanto.org.ar>  
wrote:

> On 3/8/12 8:55 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:14:34 -0500, Ary Manzana <ary at esperanto.org.ar>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The problem is not mistaking it with something else. The problem is
>>> when you want to write it. In Ruby my mind works like this:
>>>
>>> Mind: "How would I get a span for 5 seconds?"
>>> Mind: "Let's try 5.seconds"
>>> Mind: "Wow, it works!"
>>>
>>> I'm trying to remember cases when I just wrote what my mind thought it
>>> was correct and I was *so* surprised it worked out of the box in Ruby.
>>> Like writing array.last, and get it to work, instead of
>>> array[array.length - 1]. But in D, from the docs
>>> (http://dlang.org/arrays.html )
>>>
>>> bar[$-1] // retrieves last element of the array
>>>
>>> I read: bar dollar minus one wait what??
>>
>> array.back;
>>
>> http://dlang.org/phobos/std_array.html#back
>>
>> This is the issue with "intuition". It's easy to say, "hey I guessed
>> right in Ruby! Ruby must be more intuitive!". But if you were someone
>> who knew the range interfaces, wouldn't you try array.back in Ruby and
>> say "well, obviously D is more intuitive, it knew what I wanted without
>> even looking up the docs!"
>>
>> You are never going to come up with something that's *perfectly*
>> intuitive for everyone in every situation.
>
> Thanks, I didn't know that function.
>
> The problem is, you don't go saying "Hey, I want the back of an array",  
> (or the back element of an array) you usually say "I want the last  
> element of an array" (or range, whatever). I can't understand why "back"  
> was used instead of last.

I think front and back were used for two reasons.  One, to avoid confusion  
with first and last as it applies to list-based languages.  Two, because  
STL uses those terms.

This is when it was decided:  
http://forum.dlang.org/post/gltq4k$93i$2@digitalmars.com

There was much discussion before that thread, look around to see what was  
said.

-Steve