Heap: container or range?

[Brad Roberts]

On Fri, 30 Jan 2009, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> Consider:
> 
> int[] a = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
> foreach (e; a)
> {
>    if (e == 3) break;
> }
> assert(a == [4, 5]);
> 
> Do you seriously expect that to be the case? Of course not. However, you would
> inconsistently expect this to happen:
> 
> int[] a = [ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
> foreach (e; take(4, a))
> {
>    if (e == 3) break;
> }
> assert(a == [4, 5]);
> 
> Ranges are modeled to correspond to slices. Slices have few operations that
> manipulate them by reference (notably the controversial ~=) and range are made
> to be unsurprising when compared to slices. They are really extensions of
> slices.
> 
> 
> Andrei

I hate to come back to naming, but I think that's a major part of what's 
causing grief here.  Take implies mutation of the input range.  How about 
'subrange' or 'subset' or 'leftmost' anything that doesn't imply removal.

Later,
Brad