From: Conrad Schneiker <schneik@...>
Date: 2001-03-13T05:37:58+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:12527] Re: Haskell goodies, RCR and challenge

Jonas Wrote:

# Robert Feldt wrote:
# > 
# > On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
# > > |        [1,2,3,4].zip([10,20,30])             # => 
[[1,10],[2,20],[3,30]]
# > > |        [1,2,3].tail                          # => [2,3]
# > > |        [1,2,3,4].init                        # => [1,2,3]
# > >
# > > Behavior of these functions are not really apparent.  I think we 
need
# > > to discuss more about these.
# > >
# > They have been used in the functional programming community for
# > years with these names (which doesnt mean we have to adopt them...).
# > I'd say tail is a good name and a very useful method. 'init' is
# > probably too close to 'initialize' so not good name. IMHO, 'zip' is
# > a pretty good name (think about a zipper in your pants or jacket...)
# > but I'm not sure the functionality is useful enough to promote it
# > into the base lib.
[...] 
# 'zip' sound more like a method used to compress files and strings.
# :-)

As someone already mentioned, Python also uses 'zip'. 

Moreover, comp.lang.python had considerable discussions about this
(which I didn't have time to follow), but AFAIK, they made a pretty
good choice of name and operation.

Conrad Schneiker
(This note is unofficial and subject to improvement without notice.)