On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>
> These google searches returned no meaningful results:
>
Try:
splat operator

> Let's not inflate each new name idea to alleged popularity it doesn't really enjoy.
>
Having slept on it, I like splat because it IS relatively new as a named concept in our field.  Language is arbitrary, so we can do this and anyone confused can look it up.

> There will be no turning back.
>
Precisely.

-Wyatt

On 7/15/15 11:48 AM, Wyatt wrote:
> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>
>> These google searches returned no meaningful results:
>>
> Try:
> splat operator

That doesn't come to mind when splat is used as a noun. -- Andrei

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:33:53 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Probably this won't be very useful here because the abstraction we describe is rather complex. I'd be happy with something that a dozen of folks around here agree isn't bad.

I sense that the disdain for 'splat' was on account of its use as onomatopeia. I understand, and thought the same thing at first (reminded me of the old Batman TV series: Bam! Boffo! Splat!) but we get used to anything.

> If there's consensus for splat, I'm fine allowing it. I'm personally not very convinced because I'd never heard of the term before and (as I described) I was unable to discover with google what it means.

'splat operator' is how I'd Google it. If you're familiar with Ruby or PHP you'll see that terminology. Coffeescript too; here's an SO entry that gets the idea across

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6201657/what-does-splats-mean-in-the-coffeescript-tutorial

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/15/15 9:32 AM, Deadalnix wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 11:49:46 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> On 7/15/15 3:50 AM, Dicebot wrote:
>>>> Good to see another bad name merged in master ^_^
>>>
>>> So now we're at AliasTuple? -- Andrei
>>
>> Please go for splat. It turns out it is used by functional guy, in
>> various scripting languages and in the compiler backend communities.
>>
>> The thing we are trying to name is a splat.
>
> These google searches returned no meaningful results:
>
> splat
> splat data structure
> splat type
> splat computer science
>
> I did find a few relevant results with:
>
> splat functional languages
> splat scripting languages
>
> Let's not inflate each new name idea to alleged popularity it doesn't really enjoy.
>

I'm not inflating popularity (you'll have hard time quoting me doing fo, so please don't. Words have precise meaning).

This is not a popular word because this is not a popular construct to begin with. Yet this word is used to describe what we have here.

A newcomer would have either no expectation of what this construct is because he doesn't know the word (still better than tuple or list that come with the wrong expectation) or know the word and know what to expect.

>> Also, I don't have any veto, but if I had one, tuple would get it. I've
>> been hanging around for a while and seen so many being confused by d
>> tuples that persisting in that direction would be a religious decision.
>
> For this coming release we've opened the naming to a somewhat democratic process. Walter and my plan was to let everyone discuss, then approve the consensus. We jokingly/worriedly remarked that all the cries "but we have consensus on a different name!" when there existed a perception of names being imposed will instantly go away. And so it did.
>
> We won't be able to make progress if ten folks have eleven ideas about what's needed. People, choose AliasSeq, AliasTuple, or whatever the heck most of us agree upon, but let's just choose once and for good. There will be no turning back.
>
>
> Andrei

That how I ended up with seq in the first place. I went to talk to everybody and sequence was what came up the most while not having people as opposed to it as list.

What the majority come up with is different from everyone's first choice (seq isn't even my first choice). On the other hand, the recent change looks like a coup.

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:49:43 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/15/15 11:48 AM, Wyatt wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>
>>> These google searches returned no meaningful results:
>>>
>> Try:
>> splat operator
>
> That doesn't come to mind when splat is used as a noun. --

Yeah, "splat" as a name for an auto-expanding thingy would be a novelty. Ruby for instance doesn't have anything like that, it has a splat _operator_ (asterisk) to expand a normal array, or conversely, capture several arguments in one parameter.

On 7/15/15 11:54 AM, Deadalnix wrote:
> That how I ended up with seq in the first place. I went to talk to
> everybody and sequence was what came up the most while not having people
> as opposed to it as list.

Now I'm sorry I even started. I'd be happy to return to AliasSeq. -- Andrei

On 7/15/15 12:09 PM, "Marc =?UTF-8?B?U2Now7x0eiI=?= <schuetzm@gmx.net>" wrote:
> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:49:43 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 7/15/15 11:48 AM, Wyatt wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>
>>>> These google searches returned no meaningful results:
>>>>
>>> Try:
>>> splat operator
>>
>> That doesn't come to mind when splat is used as a noun. --
>
> Yeah, "splat" as a name for an auto-expanding thingy would be a novelty.
> Ruby for instance doesn't have anything like that, it has a splat
> _operator_ (asterisk) to expand a normal array, or conversely, capture
> several arguments in one parameter.

So I'd say this is a strong argument against "splat". -- Andrei

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:54:17 UTC, Deadalnix wrote:
>
> This is not a popular word because this is not a popular construct to begin with. Yet this word is used to describe what we have here.
>

Thanks to the wonderful ambiguity of natural languages, it's quite likely that a number of people will think splat is a verb because it's spelled identically to the noun. Those people would expect it to splat things, such as arrays etc. Which it doesn't, it's actually functions closer to identity than splat.

Also newcomers looking for something which can handle undefined heterogeneous things, are not likely to search the documentation for Splat. Tuple is far likelier to be found.

On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 18:21:10 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/15/15 11:54 AM, Deadalnix wrote:
>> That how I ended up with seq in the first place. I went to talk to
>> everybody and sequence was what came up the most while not having people
>> as opposed to it as list.
>
> Now I'm sorry I even started. I'd be happy to return to AliasSeq. -- Andrei

LOL. Yeah. Naming discussions always seem to go like this. Sometimes, a better name does come out of it, but even if it does, there's just way too much in the way of discussion to wade through, and it's not generally the most pleasant either. Certainly, it's pretty much never intellectually stimulating. :|

- Jonathan M Davis

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 02:21:54PM -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 7/15/15 12:09 PM, "Marc =?UTF-8?B?U2Now7x0eiI=?= <schuetzm@gmx.net>" wrote:
> >On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:49:43 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>On 7/15/15 11:48 AM, Wyatt wrote:
> >>>On Wednesday, 15 July 2015 at 15:28:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>These google searches returned no meaningful results:
> >>>>
> >>>Try:
> >>>splat operator
> >>
> >>That doesn't come to mind when splat is used as a noun. --
> >
> >Yeah, "splat" as a name for an auto-expanding thingy would be a novelty.  Ruby for instance doesn't have anything like that, it has a splat _operator_ (asterisk) to expand a normal array, or conversely, capture several arguments in one parameter.
> 
> So I'd say this is a strong argument against "splat". -- Andrei

<joke>
Maybe we should call it AliasBeads. They have order, if you count them.
Put lines of beads together, and they form a new line, so they
"autoexpand". I know of no other programming language that uses this
term, so it's unique enough to cause people to think twice when using
it. Plus, it allows for lame jokes about losing your beads when you do
something wrong, or when the compiler has bugs that cause the beads to
behave erratically. :-P
</joke>


T

-- 
Why are you blatanly misspelling "blatant"? -- Branden Robinson