ch-ch-changes

[Bill Baxter]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 6:07 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:

> Isn't "tail" the standard counterpart to "head"? ("toe" just doesn't sound
> good)

Tail has a history of being used to mean "everything but head" in
functional programming languages like Haskel and ML.

So of  back, last, end, tail, rear, foot, toe, it seems every one has
some strike against it.

back - could be mistaken for an action
last - doesn't pair well with "head", and "first" sounds too much like
item #1 overall
end - in C++ usually means "one past the end"
tail - in FP langs means "everything but head"
rear - makes Walter thing unhappy thoughts
toe - sounds silly, doesn't make so much sense for a range that
represents a tree structure.

Toe is sounding pretty ok.

Actually I think the critique that it doesn't make sense for a
non-linear range should be thrown out.  Linearizing is the whole
purpose of a range.  So even if it wasn't linear before, a range
effective is providing a linearized view of it.

So that leaves "it sounds silly", which is a pretty weak subjective
argument against.

--bb