Ali Çehreli:
iota got it wrong. I would expect new users to be confused by
iota(5). Is that "ends at 5" or "begins with 5"? The latter is
more consistent with how the function parameters at the and can
have default values. So it is likely to be perceived as the
following. Ignoring that iota is a template:
/* ... */ iota(size_t begin, size_t end = size_t.max);
I was the one that asked for the iota(5) syntax. The name iota
comes from APL, where a single argument is supported, with
similar meaning. But the idea of a single argument comes from
Python:
range(5)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
I have taught Python, and newbies understand/know that a range(5)
means a range of five items. The only problems is knowing where
it starts. But when you teach Python you say that indexes are
0-based, so they quickly remember that the range of five items
starts from zero. In D iota does the same. And so far I have had
no problems from using iota this way.
So I think iota got it right.
Instead, what I have had to tell friends reading my D code is
what the heck "iota" means. The meaning of the word "range" in
Python is simpler to guess.
Bye,
bearophile
