[swift-evolution] SetAlgebra naming update

[Dave Abrahams]

on Thu Mar 24 2016, Erica Sadun <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

>> 
>> On Mar 24, 2016, at 2:39 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Just an update:
>
>> 
>> The naming guidelines working group went back into negotiation over
>> the shape of SetAlgebra (and thus, Set and OptionSet) for
>> Swift 3, and reached a new consensus.  We intend to bring forward a
>> proposal for the API shown here:
>> 
>>  http://dabrahams.github.io/swift-naming/SetAlgebra-Math.html
>> 
>> and to update the guidelines to suggest using the "form" prefix to
>> create a verb phrase for a mutating method when the operation is
>> fundamentally non-mutating and described by a noun.
>
> I've got to say, I expected to hate this until I clicked the link and saw the actual 
> proposed syntax. For the most part, it's good: clear and readable.
>
> Not a fan of "subtracting" (would prefer "bySubtracting"). Other than that
> really impressed by how this evolved.

      x by subtracting y

means, “give me x, and get it by subtracting y.”  The use of “byXXXing”
in existing Cocoa APIs doesn't really set a precedent because it was
always preceded by a noun that described the result being returned,
e.g. “x.stringByAppending(y),” which is a completely different thing.


-- 
Dave