Re: [boost] Re: algorithms namespace

From: Dave Gomboc (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-21 14:04:28

> >>We can (re-)consider 'boost::meta':
> >>
> >>Doesn't look bad at all, actually.
> > 
> > I'm a big fan of using "meta" instead of "mpl".
> 
> FWIW, I'm not. I type it often enough to be bothered by the 
> completely unnecessary extra character.

And I'd prefer boost::metaprogramming, but I'll settle for meta if it's
the best that I can get. ;-)  Human languages are full of "extra
characters": why should programming languages be different in this
respect?  If the typing truly bothers you, try out an editor that
supports word completion.

fs is arguably sufficiently common, but I still prefer filesystem.  Not
all that long ago someone posted something here and abbreviated it as
"rng", and I thought to myself that it was very odd that they'd use
something that, as far as I am concerned, abbreviates "random number
generator".  On the flip side, perhaps if I had referred to one of these
as "rng" they would be thinking the converse.  Ergo, prefer filesystem:
those who want it shorter probably don't want the boost:: part either,
and will define fs = ::boost::filesystem once and use four characters
(fs::) from there on.

Besides which, "fs" is difficult for an English-as-a-second-language
speaker to look up in the dictionary.  I have the impression that some
simply don't care about that because English is _their_ first language
-- an unfortunate attitude.

Last year I vistied Slovenia, and when I said
"standard-eye-oh-dot-aitch" to some people, they didn't understand me,
and asked what I was talking about.  After some discussion back and
forth, it turns out that they spell that header name out character by
character: "s-t-d-i-o-pika-h".  (pika = dot, and all the letters are
pronounced differently too, of course.)  They had no idea that "std" was
being used as an abbreviation for standard in this context.  "So 's-t-d'
means standard?"  "Yes... how do you say standard in Slovene?"
"Standardija." (!)  This demonstrates that even small differences for us
can be huge differences for others.

It turns out that the "i-o" for input/output doesn't translate well into
Slovene, so those person (and all their programming friends, I'm sure)
are now happily calling it "standardija-i-o-pika-h", something I'm sure
most readers of this message will have taken the English equivalent of
for granted since the first week they programmed in C.  Had "standard"
been used instead of "std", this confusion would never have arisen, but
more importantly the name would have been meaningful to more people.

Re: boost::algorithm::<subnamespaces>, it's easy to add using directives
to bring things defined in these up to boost::algorithm.  The opposite
operation is not easy.  If it turns out do be better to have them all
together, using declarations can be added to boost itself down the road.

Dave

P.S. I think that the average teenager probably has a different meaning
for 'std' than we do too, though I'll grant that that's less relevant.
;-)