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

[Dave Abrahams]

on Thu Feb 11 2016, James Hillhouse IV <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> Dave, you are correct that in today’s common usage, ‘union’ is solely
> a noun. And you’re right that nouns don’t have an anything-participle
> or else ‘nationing’, ‘automobiling’, or ‘lift-offing' would be
> naturally appropriate, which they are obviously not, at least not yet.
>
> So, when I first saw ‘unioning’, my first thought was, “Huh”?
>
> But lo and behold, if you go back to an older version of Webster’s,
> apparently the 1917 edition if Wiktionary is to be believed, it turns
> out that ‘union’ was both a noun and a verb and therefore at least in
> that era’s usage had a past participle.
>
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/union#English
> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unioning

I'm just gonna smile now.  :-)

> The reason I commented on ‘union’ as a verb was because, with
> ‘unioning’ proposed in SetAlgebra, I figured someone in the Swift
> group must have been a fan of older verb-form usage of ‘union’. 

Yep, someone must've. ;-)

> That’s what I get for basing my comment on ‘Wiki’-anything.
>
>> On Feb 11, 2016, at 5:05 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution
>> <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> on Thu Feb 11 2016, Jim Hillhouse
>> <swift-evolution at swift.org
>> <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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'. 
>> 
>> Technically speaking, I'm pretty sure you can't have a participle of
>> anything that isn't a verb, and “union” isn't one AFAICT.
>> 
>> http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150843/verb-for-to-form-the-union-of-a-and-b
>> <http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/150843/verb-for-to-form-the-union-of-a-and-b>
>> 
>>> 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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>> 
>> -- 
>> -Dave
>> 
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-- 
-Dave