From: Gary Wright <gwtmp01@...>
Date: 2007-07-10T03:53:00+09:00
Subject: Re: Choice of the word


On Jul 4, 2007, at 10:26 AM, Gareth Adams wrote:

> Wayne E. Seguin <wayneeseguin <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The word Inject essentially means to introduce something into a
>> system and yet the inject method iterates over a series elements
>> carrying forward some sort of result at each next step.
>>
>> Hence would it not make more sense to name it " accumulate" which
>> seems to me more explicit and intuitive?
>
> The best I could ever come up with is that the function is  
> `injected` between
> the elements of the object

Yes.  For me, this rationale becomes clear when you see that

    [1,2,3,4].inject { |a,i| a + i }

is the same as

    (1 + 2 + 3 + 4)

The binary operator 'plus' has been injected between all the elements
of the collection.


Gary Wright