racket
Make RFC to rename functions related to boxes
For historical reasons the functions related to box have inconsistent names with other things like hash or vectors. What about renaming them:
unbox -> box-ref
set-box! -> box-set!
new function? -> box-set
make-weak-box -> weak-box
weak-box-value -> weak-box-ref
make-ephemeron -> ephemeron
ephemeron-value -> ephemeron-ref (?)
new function? -> ephemeron-key (Is there a good reason to avoid this?)
I find it useful to use a make- prefix to distinguish between constructors that are generative (multiple calls with same arguments return different values) and constructors that aren't. So I like names like make-box and make-weak-box for mutable boxes. What do you think of this pattern?
There are a few useful naming conventions like this in the docs, and I'm not sure if they're all documented. Should we RFC a catalog of official naming conventions?
I think the general trend is to remove the make- prefix, like in the constructors in struct definitions, (box x), (vector 1 2 3), ...
Boxes have a value field that can be updated with :=. Following the general convention for mutable fields, Box.value can be used with one argument as an accessor or two arguments as a mutator (i.e., an alternative to :=).
