Stupid little iota of an idea

[Ary Manzana]

On 2/9/11 3:54 PM, bearophile wrote:
> - There is no need to learn to use a function with a weird syntax like iota, coming from APL. This makes Phobos and learning D a bit simpler.

I would recommend stop using "weird" names for functions. Sorry if this 
sounds a little harsh but the only reason I see this function is called 
"iota" is to demonstrate knowledge (or to sound cool). But programmers 
using a language don't care about whether the other programmer 
demonstrates knowledge behind a function name, they just want to get 
things done, fast.

I mean, if I want to create a range of numbers I would search "range". 
"iota" will never, ever come to my mind. D has to be more open to 
public, not only to people who programmed in APL, Go or are mathematics 
freaks. Guess how a range is called in Ruby? That's right, Range.

Another example: retro. The documentation says "iterates a bidirectional 
name backwards". Hm, where does "retro" appear in that text? If I want 
to iterate it backwards, or to reverse the order, the first thing I 
would write is reverse(range) or backwards(range), "retro" would never 
come to my mind.

(and no, replies like "you can always alias xxx" are not accepted :-P)