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by JorgeGT 1079 days ago
The "clear" part is often the issue. My favorite example:

- In Mathematica, if you want to plot a vector field, you use VectorPlot[]

- In MATLAB, you use... quiver(). You know, because it holds a lot of arrows. Short and clear, eh?

4 comments

There's a possible higher-order argument for `quiver()`: the name is idiosyncratic, and sufficiently enough that it might tend to get remembered, which is useful for however many more minutes humans are actually writing code in this world.

As contrasted with "VectorPlot": was that "VectorPlot", "VectorGraph", "TensorPlot", or "PlotVector"?

"quiver" is short and sweet and slightly unusual but also conceptually related in a sense to the function.

I'm not saying that "quiver" is the better name, though I'm offering some arguments as to why it might be.

> - In MATLAB, you use... quiver(). You know, because it holds a lot of arrows. Short and clear, eh?

"Shaka, when the walls fell."

Sure it's poetic, but WTF do you mean?

"Clear over Clever" is a pretty simple rule that helps avoid this type of thing.
Super clever.

Very unclear to anyone who is new to that functionality, though.