Re: name an array function

[Stefan Israelsson Tampe]

array-sub maybe,

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Daniel Llorens <address@hidden>
wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> version 2.2 of Guile will (I hope) include rank-polymorphic versions of
> array-ref, array-set! and array-for-each. What this means is that instead
> of requiring as many indices as the rank of the array, with these functions
> you can give fewer indices and get a subarray (a ‘prefix slice’). If you
> give all the indices, they behave just as the current versions.
>
> My original intention was for these functions to replace array-ref and
> array-set!. That's how a number of array languages/libraries do it (numpy,
> to mention a popular one. You don't need to say A[i, :, :], you can just
> say A[i].). However, the maintainers spoke against this, so these functions
> need different names.
>
> The names I chose are array-from, array-amend! and array-for-each-cell.
> These names are taken from the J docs (http://www.jsoftware.com/
> help/dictionary/d520.htm, http://www.jsoftware.com/help/
> dictionary/d530n.htm), because the behavior is based on J and I consider
> J to be ‘the source’ when it comes to these concepts.
>
> civodul has proposed array-slice instead of array-from. However,
> array-from only returns a slice when the rank of the result would be
> positive. wingo has pointed out that it is unusual to have a function name
> ending in a preposition.
>
> What do *you* think should be the names of these functions?
>
> Thanks,
>
>         lloda
>
> PS: The justification for these functions is given in the documentation,
> but in short: 1) other than the creation of the subarray descriptors, they
> don't cost any more than the rank-strict versions, 2) the only way to
> reproduce them in current Guile is with make-shared-array, which is very
> slow and cumbersome, 3) they recover a functionality that used to be part
> of Guile but was removed (‘enclosed arrays’).
>
> PPS: You can check out the functions at http://git.savannah.gnu.org/
> gitweb/?p=guile.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/lloda-squash1. I rebase this
> branch on master periodically. The maintainers have reviewed it, but any
> extra reviews would of course be appreciated, especially of the doc.
>
>
>