Why append shouldn't be called append

[Star Weaver]

I suggested calling it Join in http://wiki.neurohack.com/transcendence/trac/ticket/858 and now I'm remembering to get around to making a discussion thread thing about it.

So, um, discuss.

[Aury]

As a C-family native programmer, I divide things into 'atomic & pseudo-atomic' and 'non-atomic' types. Atomic are things like ints, pointers, chars, etc. Pseudo-atomic things are Abstract Data Types (ADTs) and tend to be things like c-strings, etc. Non-atomic types are clearly non-atomic data structures like lists, templates, arrays, etc.

Links and Structs fall into the non-atomic group here, while the function name 'Append' suggests that it is meant to be used on atomic items, due to lack of a prefix. Maybe a clone with the prefix of lst for all list functions (ie, operating with lists). I've actually been pre-pending them with lnk in TAI so far, since I didn't realize that there was a distinction between functions operating with elements of the list and the lists themselves.

[FourFire]

And I basically missed everything which Wolfy just said.
(move along, nothing to comprehend here!)

[george moromisato]

I agree that "append" is suboptimal, but I'm not sure "join" is better. In many languages "join" is used to concatenate a list of strings into a single string with a separator:

Code: Select all

(join (list "a" "b" "c") ",") -> "a,b,c"

p.s., the most common usage of append it to append an atom to a list:

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(append (list 'a 'b 'c) 'd) -> ('a 'b 'c 'd)

p.p.s., Lisp uses the word "append" the same way:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.append#Lisp

p.p.p.s., You can always alias it:

Code: Select all

(setq join append)

[Star Weaver]

Code: Select all

(setq join append)

Hmm, I'd do this but wouldn't .......... oh, no it wouldn't. I was thinking it would introduce substantial call overhead but it's just a name rebinding .

I don't think i've ever used append so no big there, I've just kinda been wanting to get it out of the headspace of people trying to learn the language ....

I need to finish that best practicices page and maybe start a 'stuff that will trip you up' page .... like default global data D:.

[alterecco]

I never had a problem with append

[Vachtra]

My first encounter with append was with making pdf files where append means to put at the end of, think of an appendis of a book.
This seems to do just that in that it puts things together in the order you put them in.

Seems fine to me. to say append "thingy" with "other thingy".

In my head at least join sounds like inheriting traits of a class rather than putting things together.