[swift-evolution] Proposal for Replacing Keyword "subscript" with "subs"

[Feijian Sun]

Sorry, but I still think that a language itself and the API created with the language are two different things. A language can use any abbreviations as its keywords as long as they are defined clearly. But the names used for API are created by developers and should follow some common guidelines.
Just my own opinions. But good talk.
Thanks.

From: sethfri at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 19:25:25 -0800
Subject: Re: [swift-evolution] Proposal for Replacing Keyword "subscript" with "subs"
To: feijian_sun at hotmail.com
CC: jackl at apple.com; swift-evolution at swift.org

I disagree that API for libraries and API for the language are different subjects, otherwise that would make one feel rather unnatural when compared to the other.
As for your specific example, a quick Google search for "var programming" or "var computer science" will quickly tell you what the word means. A search for "var" by itself does not, same with "func", but I don't think we should be so pedantic that we insist on single word web searches.
Thanks,Seth

On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 7:09 PM Feijian Sun <feijian_sun at hotmail.com> wrote:



Thanks for your suggestion! 
But you're talking about the guidelines for Swift API Design while I'm proposing a keyword change in the language itself. I think they are not the same subjects.
The language itself uses many abbreviations as its keywords. If you search for 'var' on web, for example, you won't easily find it stands for 'variable'. Does it mean it violates the guidelines?


From: sethfri at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:58:45 -0800
Subject: Re: [swift-evolution] Proposal for Replacing Keyword "subscript" with "subs"
To: feijian_sun at hotmail.com; jackl at apple.com
CC: swift-evolution at swift.org

I encourage you to read the Swift API Design Guidelines, as there are a couple of things there that discourage what you are suggesting:"Clarity is more important than brevity. Although Swift code can be compact, it is a non-goal to enable the smallest possible code with the fewest characters. Brevity in Swift code, where it occurs, is a side-effect of the strong type system and features that naturally reduce boilerplate."Avoid abbreviations. Abbreviations, especially non-standard ones, are effectively terms-of-art, because understanding depends on correctly translating them into their non-abbreviated forms.The intended meaning for any abbreviation you use should be easily found by a web search.Thanks,Seth
On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 6:52 PM Feijian Sun via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:



Thank you for responding so late!
I agree with you that "subs" is not very obvious for subscript. While learning swift, I have a feeling that it contains so many long words as the keywords, such as
fallthrough, dynamicType, associativity, convenience, nonmutating, precedence, etc..
I understand there is a need for clarity. But I think it's also important to keep a concise and simple naming style where it's possible.
Thanks again.
Subject: Re: [swift-evolution] Proposal for Replacing Keyword "subscript" with "subs"
From: jackl at apple.com
Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 18:22:55 -0800
CC: swift-evolution at swift.org
To: feijian_sun at hotmail.com

It’s non-obvious to me that “subs” is short for subscript, whereas “init” and “func” have only one obvious expansion.
Jack 
On Dec 10, 2015, at 6:12 PM, Feijian Sun via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
Hello, I have a proposal to replace the long keyword "subscript" with the shorter version, "subs". The idea is to keep the concise naming style on the language keywords, like "init" and "func".So, Instead of:subscript(index: Int) -> Int {        ... ...}we could simply do:subs(index: Int) -> Int{        ... ...}Does this mean a big change on the parser side? what do you think?Thank you! _______________________________________________swift-evolution mailing listswift-evolution at swift.orghttps://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
 		 	   		  



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