Stupid little iota of an idea

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, February 10, 2011 17:45:21 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message
> news:ij1nkf$i7g$2 at digitalmars.com...
> 
> > I don't find the name "iota" stupid.
> 
> Far as I can tell, you seem to be nearly the only one who finds it to be a
> good name. I can live with it, since I've just simply learned that in D
> "iota(x,y)" means "range of integers from [x,y)". And the controversy over
> it's name helps me to remember. But still, I'm yet another in the seemingly
> much larger camp of "The word 'iota' doesn't remotely reflect what it
> does". Additionally, I've never known any other meaning for "iota" besides
> "vey small amount", I've never used APL, and I've certainly never used
> non-standard SGI extensions to C++.
> 
> (Actually, the first time I saw "iota()", my thought was "Wait, I thought D
> used the much more readable to!string(7)...oh, wait, that says iota, not
> itoa..." But that might just be my problem ;) )
> 
> FWIW, I do like "retro".

I feel pretty much the same way. iota seems like a horrible name as far as 
figuring out what the function does from its name goes. I don't know what a good 
name would be though (genSequence?), but since I know what it does, it doesn't 
confuse me when I see it. It does have the advantage of being short at least.

So, I don't think that it's a good name, but I don't think that it's worth 
changing either. retro is a good name though. But there _are_ going to be 
functions with relatively poor names, and it's not like we'll ever get agreement 
on all function names anyway.

- Jonathan m Davis