Naming things

[Philpax via Digitalmars-d]

On Saturday, 20 June 2015 at 09:27:16 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev 
wrote:
> Naming things
>
>       There are only two hard things
>       in Computer Science: cache
>       invalidation and naming things.
>       -- Phil Karlton
>
> Hello,
>
> There has been a lot of recent debate regarding the names of 
> some new functions recently added to Phobos.
> ...

I'd like to note my support for consistent/standardized naming 
(especially with regards to `withExtension`/`setExt`). As an 
end-user of D, it's very important to me that a precedent be set 
for naming prior to D releases - it means less time spent upfront 
perusing documentation, and less time spent trying to understand 
how a particular function works. When I'm viewing code "in the 
wild," so to speak, time spent trying to understand byzantine 
names is time wasted.

In this particular case, `withExtension` is objectively better 
than `setExt.` The `with` prefix indicates lazy operation - this 
is a much better cue as to the function's operation than the 
truncation of an already-existing name. Truncating the name will, 
without a doubt, lead to user confusion: these two functions have 
the same goal, but operate in fundamentally different ways, and 
the name should reflect this. The alphanumerical sorting argument 
has little validity, especially seeing as the "See Also" section 
serves the same purpose.

I understand that the community's been beset with naming 
discussions for the longest of times - and yes, they can often be 
non-productive - but there are some cases in which it is very 
much worth the time choosing a better name. `setExt` is 
objectively confusing and uncommunicative of its actual 
functionality - and it can be fixed now, before it becomes a 
permanent wart.

As a final note, naming conventions are very important for the 
end-user of a programming language. If one goes with a 'pick the 
first name that works' approach, the result is a very 
unproductive, contradictory language; an extreme example of this 
can be seen in PHP, where programmers often have to consult the 
documentation for *every* function to find the correct name for 
every function. We have the ability to prevent that from 
happening here.