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

Xiaodi Wu xiaodi.wu at gmail.com
Thu Feb 11 17:33:52 CST 2016


On Thu, Feb 11, 2016 at 5:24 PM, Brent Royal-Gordon via
swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> My suggestions:
>
>         union -> union
>         intersect -> intersection
>         subtract -> subtraction
>
>         unionInPlace -> unite
>         intersectInPlace -> intersect
>         subtractInPlace -> subtract
>
> In other words, treat the mutating forms as imperative verbs and the nonmutating forms as nouns. This basically makes the nonmutating forms into accessors, which I think is a good alternative given the trouble we're having with -ing/-ed.

I could live with that.

> That still leaves exclusiveOr, which is frankly a horrible name to begin with. I think we have to derive a name from the "symmetric difference" terminology, giving us
>
>         exclusiveOr -> difference
>         exclusiveOrInPlace -> differ

Nit: the set difference, or just difference, of two sets is the term
for the result of subtraction() and isn't the same as the symmetric
difference.


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