From: Kevin Smith <sent@...>
Date: 2001-02-16T01:33:36+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:10908] Re: RubyChangeRequest #U002: new proper namefor Hash#indexes, Array#indexes

Guy N. Hurst wrote:
>Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
>> In message "[ruby-talk:10853] Re: RubyChangeRequest #U002: new proper name for Hash#indexes, Array#indexes"
>>     on 01/02/15, "Mike Wilson" <wmwilson01@hotmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> |Array#at seems to be most similar, only it just takes 1 argument.  Would it
>> |be possible to extend that to multiple arguments and for the Hash as well?
>> 
>> Possible.  The key is here.
>> 
>> |a.at(0)   -> 1 # maybe change to [1]?
>> 
>> For consistency, at(0) might be better to return an array, but it's
>> incompatibility, which I don't want to incorporate.
>> 
>> Array#elements? Hash#values?

Extending Hash#values to accept a list of keys 
still seems best to me.

>How do the following three or four choices seem to others?
>
>In considering these options and how they might look, I refer
>to my_array and my_hash:
>
>my_array = ["fred", "joe", "jane"]
>my_hash = {"first"=>"fred","second"=>"joe","third"=>"jane"}
>
>1. #subset
>I think that since we can select them and form a new array of values,
>using Array#subset and Hash#subset might be relevant. 
>
>my_array.subset(1,2) => ["joe","jane"]
>my_hash.subset("second","third") => ["joe","jane"]

I could live with this. 

>2. #selections
>Yet another could be Array#selections and Hash#selections:
>
>my_array.selections(1,2) => ["joe","jane"]
>my_hash.selections("second","third") => ["joe","jane"]

This doesn't really speak to me. I'm not sure 
what a "selection" is, so I don't think we should 
add another term to the language if we don't have 
to.

>
>3. #collect_indexes / #select_indexes

But the original problem we were trying to solve 
is that #indexes doesn't return indexes (keys). 
It returns values. Putting indexes in the name 
will continue at least some of that confusion.

Kevin