World: r3wp

A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and 
abstract idea. Nouns are usually the first words which small children 
learn. The highlighted words in the following sentences are all nouns:

    Late last *year* our *neighbours* bought a *goat*.
    *Portia* *White* was an *opera* *singer*.

    The *bus* *inspector* looked at all the *passengers*' *passes*.

    According to *Plutarch*, the *library* at *Alexandria* was destroyed 
    in 48 B.C.
    *Philosophy* is of little *comfort* to the *starving*.

According to you, all starred words (no rich text in AltME) should 
get question marks

For other people, just to make sure they understand even if they 
don't remember the wording of the http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/concepts/scripts-style.html#section-10
convention:


- the convention applies *only* to function names, not to the REBOL 
words in general

- when picking a name for a function, any candidate is not a name 
yet, it is just a word/words, and it can be examined, whether it 
is a noun or not
- etc.

Most REBOL words hold functions, so what's the difference? And with 
all words, it's impossible to tell from the lexical notation if it's 
a function or not

The difference is, that when sticking to the convention, it is easier 
to find out, that:


DO is a function, PRINT is a function, GET is a function, LENGTH? 
is a function

So I ask again, what about the REBOL functions that don't conform 
to this convention?

of course, it does not make any trouble to add WORDS-OF convention, 
since it does not introduce any ambiguities

Using a question mark on LENGTH doesn't tell you that DO, PRINT and 
GET are functions

suggested reading: http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/concepts/scripts-style.html#section-10

the convention for functions simpy is that:
  -they should (start with) verbs

  -if using a noun, it should have some special char to imply its a 
  function. (i.e. size? vs size)

also: http://www.rebol.com/r3/docs/concepts/scripts-style.html#section-11

words of breaks this convetion since it starts with an noun and isn't 
followed by a special char... I think that is the only point Ladislav 
is trying to make !!?!?

oops...    should be:   words-of

no, I was trying to make the point, that WORDS-OF may well be added 
as an alternative

(to the above doc article)

...since it is missing

...and since it does not introduce any ambiguities when added, as 
far as I am able to find out

You would have a stronger case if you would admit that it is about 
property getters, not about nouns as such

The documentation would make a stronger case if it wouldn't confuse 
nouns and verbs

Some nouns can also be used as verbs.

This is impossible in human language. What it means is that some 
nouns can also be used as function names

While I see the WORDS-OF naming convention as coming from the C language, 
I am not a C hater to the extent to refuse it. As some noticed, it 
may even make the source code more human readable as in:

    length-of series

versus

    length? series

By definition, when this situation occurs in human language, we say 
that the word can be used as both a noun and a verb, with different 
grammar and semantics

In human language, that doesn't require a different form for the 
word, but it does trigger a flag in our language sensibility that 
something odd is being said

It is funny, that it looks, that people prefer

    length-of series

to the form

    get-length series

which is starting with a verb...

Because it is declarative

when "length" is followed by a serie

Why do we need to write "length of serie" , Is that not already implicit 
?

I am sorry, Steeve, but I probably do not understand your question

I just wonder, giving that idiom 
-> length serie
Why do we need to specify:
-> length of serie

Is that not already implicit, that the word "length" applies on the 
"serie"

length serie 


isn't readable.   they are two different sentences, in fact you'd 
need a comma or a semi-colon in english.

length?  implies the whole sentence... what is length of ?

our brain fills in the gap cause its very obvious for any english 
speaker... this might not be the case for non native english speaking 
people though...

I'm ok to add "of" in Rebol as a special transparent word to help 
the reader.
>> of: func [value][:value]
to be able to write such things like:
>> length of serie

but not like a mezz, it must be fast

the issue is that  'length is the function, not  'of  

and length is not a verb, this is very confusing.

size is a noun as well a verb

Yes, but that is quite funny, since "size" as a verb does not mean 
what the "size?" word is supposed to mean

steeve, yes which is why adding an ! or ? at the end is an easy to 
make a difference between the noun or the verb.

that is quite funny, since 

size" as a verb does not mean what the "size?" word is supposed to 
mean"

This is what I meant by that the case of the same word being able 
to be either a verb or a noun triggers a flag in one's language sensibility

What Steeve means is that, nonetheless, English has no problem with 
the two cases being the same word, because it can be inferred from 
the context

To "size something up" means "to get the size of it"

To make that explicit, you could use size-up for the verb and size-of 
for the noun

Of course, you could also use <verb>size</verb> and <noun>size</noun>

The point being, that REBOL is based on relative expressions, so 
SIZE is correct to use in all cases, like in human language

if you are saying "I do not want to respect the REBOL function naming 
convention" then I don't want to change your mind in that. But, I 
think, that a reasonable naming convention is of advantage, and the 
one Carl wrote looks good enough to me.

This all should move to advocacy :-)

Why?

(it discusses the function naming if I am allowed to remind you)

Because when I got back to home, it feels like arguing :-) i know 
we are discussing consistency here, and I am the first one who always 
screams when something is feeling inconsistent, but - I would 100 
times prefer Carl being back, ending his 2-3 months R3 black-out 
period, instead of caring, if one function is going to be called 
faces-of, or faces?, because in the end the discussion started because 
of that. And even more - whatever we think, will have to be agreed 
by Carl anyway ...