<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;" class=""><li style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" class="">When <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">a mutating method is described by a verb, name its non-mutating counterpart</strong> according to the <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“ed/ing” rule</strong>, e.g. the non-mutating versions of <code class="highlighter-rouge" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap; font-family: Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace, serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 3px 8px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);">x.sort()</code> and <code class="highlighter-rouge" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap; font-family: Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace, serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 3px 8px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);">x.append(y)</code> are <code class="highlighter-rouge" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap; font-family: Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace, serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 3px 8px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);">x.sorted()</code> and <code class="highlighter-rouge" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; white-space: nowrap; font-family: Menlo, Consolas, Monaco, 'Courier New', monospace, serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 3px 8px; border: 1px solid rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(247, 247, 247);">x.appending(y)</code>.</li></ul></blockquote><div class="">This is a nice rule in theory, but English fights it with the full fury of its irregularity. There are a lot of common operations whose past tense shares a spelling with the infinitive—'split', 'cut', 'read', and 'cast' immediately come to mind. How do you handle naming non-mutating versions of these operations? Conjugating other irregular verbs also imposes a barrier on developers whose first language is not English.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">-Joe</div></body></html>