ch-ch-changes

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Bill Baxter" <wbaxter at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.530.1233135120.22690.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> 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

How about "it sounds really, really silly"? ;)