Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] ExtLib v0.1o

[Nicolas C. <war...@fr...>]

> > > > Can we rename MList to something more descriptive, such as
List_Mutable?
> > >
> > > And after several times List_Mutable.iter is getting
> > > really verbose ( by the way that seems to be the caml team opinion as
well
> > > since we have Hashtbl and not Hashtable module )
> >
> > Well, Hashtbl is at least understandable what it is, shortening Mutable
to
> > M is not.
>
> I agree with this.  Every time I see MList, it gets parsed as ML-ist (like
> duelist or trombonist) rather than M-List, and it takes me time to
> remember what the heck an ML-ist is...
>
> My vote would go for a longer more descriptive name such as Mutable_List
> (+0.9) or Mut_List (+0.6).  Besides, aren't long, commonly used
> identifiers why jeebus invented keyboard macros?

For a langage-design problem, you're using an editor solution... I think
you're totally wrong here, because as we can choose, they shouldn't be *any*
long, commonly used identifier.

Main arguments against MList are :

1) this is too short for COAN , can cause name clash
    answer : we're writing a "standard" library, we have priority on module
names (just after the official ones)
    answer2 : there currently no COAN around
    answer3 : the -pack compiler option can resolve such problems

2) this is not understandable in the first sight
    answer : why should it be ? I mean, if you're reading a Java program
without knowing at least a bit of the JDK, you're not going to understand it
like you would read an english text.
    answer2 :  Programming is matter of syntax and semantic rules, keeping
shortly named modules is helpful when reading problems as it keeps the
source code compact.
    answer3 : It's only a problem for beginners, and they can still look at
the doc to see what is MList

Naming conflicts should be resolved by arguments, not by a vote.

Nicolas Cannasse