[swift-evolution] ed/ing, InPlace, Set/SetAlgebra naming resolution

Jim Hillhouse jimhillhouse at me.com
Thu Feb 11 12:54:31 CST 2016


Are these function names being based on the present participle of each verb, e.g. 'union' and 'intersect'? 

The present participle of 'union' is technically speaking, 'unioning'. But it is not widely used. In fact, in both Pages and Word, 'unioning' is flagged as a misspelling of 'union'.

The present participle of 'intersect' is 'intersecting'; 'intersection' is a noun. 

As currently presented, the use of 'union' and 'intersection' are a mixing of rarely used though correct present participle verb tense and a noun. I think it would be better to recognize that 'union' and 'intersection' are two universally used mathematical terms and to forego the suggested verb tense gymnastics. 

Jim

jimhillhouse at me.com
512-484-9489

Sent from Jim's iPhone


> On Feb 11, 2016, at 12:09 PM, Xiaodi Wu via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> MHO: +1 on the intention of using less unwieldy names, but -1 on the specific solution. I fear that the current solution has some inexplicable inconsistencies and some Englishing which verges, again MHO, on Hungarianisms that others have mentioned are to be explicitly avoided.
> 
> For example, why is it intersection() but unioning()? Surely it should be either intersecting() and unioning() or intersection() and union()? Also, I understand that there's precedent elsewhere and that uniting() is not a good counterpart to union(), but unioning() is a pretty unsavory mangling of the noun. And then we have exclusiveOring(), which is just not English.
> 
>> On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 11:38 AM Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi All,
>> 
>> The API guidelines working group took up the issue of the InPlace suffix
>> yesterday, and decided that it was not to be used anywhere in the
>> standard library.  We are planning to apply the changes shown here
>> <https://gist.github.com/dabrahams/d872556291a3cb797bd5> to the API of
>> SetAlgebra (and consequently Set) to make it conform to the guidelines
>> under development.
>> 
>> Comments welcome as usual,
>> 
>> --
>> -Dave
>> 
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