Re: lambda() naming

At 22:44 04/06/2000, Sterling Hughes wrote:

Andrei Zmievski wrote: On Sun, 04 Jun 2000, Andi Gutmans wrote:

Guys, I want to change the name of lambda() tomorrow. Let's agree on a name. Possibilities people brought up: create_funtion() new_funtion() anonymous_function() I am for create_function().

Well, seeing as nobody is for lambda() (which would make most sense to me, since I think beginners would not use it at all), create_function() or new_function() would be fine. I'm for lambda(), I think its unreasonable to cater to the DCD (Dumbest Common Denominator), if the users can't learn what lambda() does, they shouldn't be programming, period. I mean heck, lets go ahead, and change preg_grep to "search_a_list_by_a_pattern_and_return_the_result" or chop to "take_off_the_whitespace_at_the_end_of_this_string()."

I have to second Andi on this one. I have a computer science degree, and until Stig Bakken suggested we implement lambda() some 2.5 years ago, I never heard of it. Perhaps I'm not the most experienced CS major in the world, but I don't consider myself amongst the DCD, as you define it... Bare in mind that we're not aiming PHP at the CS majors. Most CS majors wouldn't use PHP or get involved in Web development in the first place. At the very least, a huge amount of people without computer science knowledge uses PHP, and this will only become more and more true as time goes by. That's mainly because PHP is such an easy language to learn and use. With all due respect to the name 'lambda' and whatever meaning it has in CS or in math, in LISP or in other languages, create_function() describes what it does much better, and would make the code much more readable to the non CS guys, while not impairing the ability of CS guys to understand what's going on. I see no particular reason to go with 'lambda'. Zeev -- Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> http://www.zend.com/