+1 on existing names
On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:50:12 -0500 Rich Hickey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Nov 10, 2008, at 8:48 AM, Robert Lally wrote: > > > One of the many things that I really like about Clojure is that it > > abandoned Lisp tradition where it was pragmatic to do so. One of > > the prime examples for me was the use of first and rest rather than > > car and cdr. Sure, I can read code with car and cdr but it never > > really communicated that well; I always had to go through a > > translation step in my head. > > It's important to note right away that car and cdr aren't > abbreviations for anything more meaningful than car and cdr. > > > With this in mind it surprises me ( and disappoints a little ) > > that there are still abbreviated function names in many places - > > aget, aset, assoc, conj, coll?, comp, and so on. Is there any need > > for this in the 21st century? > > I think so, but I understand this is somewhat subjective. It is > useful to look at the 'competition' here (from random other > languages): > > array-get -> [] > associate -> put > conjoin -> add > compose -> . > > I don't see people coming from a language where array access is [] > feeling good about the verbosity of array-get. > > put and add have imperative connotations that don't fit what assoc > and conj do, so using them would only confuse people more. > > > The trade off between meaningful method names and number of > > characters typed doesn't seem to be a good one from my > > perspective; particularly as IDE support matures and you will only > > need to type 'asso' to have the IDE expand the function name to > > 'associate' for you. > > IDEs can be great, but having to rely on them is a real problem. > People stumble over Lisps due to editors without adequate paren > matching, and if my experience with Clojure users is a guide, people > tend to try to stick with the editor they already know, leaving them > waiting for specific language support. Adding completion to the > 'things your editor must do before you can write Clojure > effectively' sets a high bar. > > > Using full words as function names leads to more readable code .. > > which can only be a good thing. > > They do only to a point, and then the code gets larger and harder to > scan, lines spill etc. > > > I'm not suggesting that terseness is bad, merely that I don't > > believe the trade off is worth it in this case. I've shown Clojure > > to a number of people and the Lisp derived syntax coupled with > > abridged names makes it harder for people to comprehend, makes it > > less likely that on first encountering a piece of Clojure code > > that they'll be able to understand it, and so make it less likely > > that I'll get to write Clojure for a living ... which makes me sad. > > Well, people have to learn something new when they approach a new > language. I'm not sure associate or conjoin would be more readily > understood without some background on persistent immutable data > structures. But at least it's not a lot of arbitrary syntax and > associativity rules, and most of the short names are true > abbreviations. Short names are one way Clojure can compete for > brevity with languages that get their brevity from syntax. IMO, it's > more approachable than Haskell, Erlang, Scala or any of the ML > variants. > > array-get, associate, conjoin and compose etc are all still > available. I wonder - would people use them if they were provided as > aliases? I know I wouldn't. The vocabulary of seqs and collections > is so small. While I appreciate the approachability argument, a > language is ultimately for its practitioners. I imagine there are > those that wish assoc/conj/apply et al were even shorter, or > dedicated symbols... > > Since I don't hear this argument too often, I image Clojure is > striking an acceptable balance. What does everyone else think? > > Rich > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
