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Postings from February 2017
On 02/19/2017 11:41 AM, Father Chrysostomos wrote: > Karl Williamson wrote: >> I think it is a good idea to at least give people an opportunity to have >> a name that doesn't mislead, even if we keep the old name for back >> compatibility. I've done that several times in the core. The problem >> with a misleading name is that it, well, misleads. Even if you know >> about it, in skimming code, you can be misled. > > But in the end having four different ways to write AvFILL is more con- > fusing than the situation we started with. (And av_tindex does not > seem at all an intuitive name to me.) The first things I created synonyms for, IIRC were isALNUM and isALNUMC, and their derivatives. I remain convinced this was a good idea. I looked back over the emails concerning av_tindex and av_top_index. These were designed to replace av_len, which already was a synonym for AvFILL and AvFILLp. av_len was clearly misnamed. It did not correspond to sv_len. There were no complaints about av_tindex at the time, though comments were requested, so it went in. It is for us aural learners who pronounce internally what we read. > >> So, I support adding a synonym. > > I do not. The main reasons for using the function are to work around > problems with buggy XS modules. Adding a synonym for a function that > most correct code should not be using seems like the wrong direction > to be going in. > I don't think your argument makes sense here. Having a name that clearly indicates what the function does will decrease the likelihood of someone using it in situations where it isn't warranted, which is what we want.Thread Previous | Thread Next