[ruby-core:17174] Re: Enumerable::Enumerator#with_memo

At Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:11:38 +0900,
David Flanagan wrote:
> Akinori MUSHA wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Earlier today I added a new instance method named `with_memo' to
> > Enumerable::Enumerator, but I'm not 100% sure if the name fits the
> > function.
>
> I'd like to try to revive this thread, if I can.  This seems to me an
> important new method in a core part of the Ruby platform and I'm quite
> surprised that we haven't heard more debate from the usually more
> vocal ruby-core community.
>
> I don't like the name with_memo.  Rick DeNatale proposed "returning"
> instead, and I like that better than with_memo.  I've also proposed a
> separate, related method named "adding" that does not return its
> argument.  (But that proposal isn't fully thought out, since I haven't
> convinced myself what a more useful return value would be.)

I thought up the name `with_memo' by analogy to with_index, adding a
memo object instead of an index.  The problem would be that it doesn't
say at all that it returns self.  For `returning', the opposite would
apply.  It would be nice if there is a name that implies both.

> Anyway, I suspect that the silence in this case means that the thread
> has been overlooked and not that no one really cares about the name of
> this method.  This method has just been added into 1.9.  I'd suggest
> that whatever name it has when 1.9.0-2 is released in a couple of
> weeks ought to be the final name. So we don't have much time to debate
> this and try to get it right.

I suggest everyone with some interest in the method use it and write
some piece of code, get hinted and come up with a better name.

If the debate seems to reach nowhere, I will even think withdrawing
the method itself before 1.9.0-2.

--
Akinori MUSHA / http://akinori.org/