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2 points by fallintothis 5237 days ago | link | parent

I'd try to err on the side of generality. And I'm not quite as concerned about to:output / from:input, if the names are still "clear enough".

As to waterhouse's suggestions, I had considered those names. I suppose if you read appendfile as a noun instead of a verb-and-noun, it's confusing (though infile and outfile don't really have the same problem, so it's not the train of thought my brain follows). It's hard modifying a name like tofile with a long word like append. We already have two words in tofile, so adding a third without hyphenation is stretching it, and adding hyphens breaks the flow with the other names (fromfile, tostring, etc.). We could go for something shorter, like addtofile, which delineates itself well without hyphens because each word is one syllable. If we can't avoid hyphens, using / instead (e.g., tofile/a or tofile/append) flows better, but isn't that great.

Another name that occurred to me -- and is probably my favorite so far -- is ontofile, which is still simple enough to not need hyphens, communicates intent (appending something onto a file), and worms the word to in there, painting it with the to:output / from:input correlation. Thoughts?



2 points by evanrmurphy 5237 days ago | link

Another name that occurred to me -- and is probably my favorite so far -- is ontofile, which is still simple enough to not need hyphens, communicates intent (appending something onto a file), and worms the word to in there, painting it with the to:output / from:input correlation. Thoughts?

+1! ontofile is a great name, in my opinion, for all the reasons you listed.

I searched for a good portmanteau in the vein of mappend, but I don't think there is one. fappend? Sounds like frappuchino. filepend is decent, but I think I prefer ontofile.

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2 points by fallintothis 5237 days ago | link

fappend? Sounds like a frappuchino.

Hahaha! Or worse: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fap :P

filepend is decent, but I think I prefer ontofile.

Agreed on both counts. But that's a clever one; I hadn't thought to try out portmanteaus yet.

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1 point by evanrmurphy 5236 days ago | link

Oh wow, didn't know that one. Who knew you could get street smarter hanging out on Arc Forum??

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