How do you call Predef.?

#1

Hi,

Quick and silly question.

I’m wondering how I should pronounce Predef.???
Is there a non-documented nickname for it?
I couldn’t find any in the API scaladoc and topic is hard to search on forums :slight_smile:
“Triple question mark” isn’t quite satisfying.
“Nothing” would be misleading.

Thanks
d.

#2

“Unimplemented”?

Since a question mark is also called a “query”, “triple query” would be
legitimate.

#3

I would go with “triple question mark,” not sure what you don’t like about it.

If you call it Nothing you might end up with a bit of a who’s on first routine… :smiley: “What’s that symbol?” “Nothing.” …

In the spirit of SIP 23 – increasing the symmetry between the term language and the type language, it would be an interesting thought experiment to have a literal Nothing value (instead of ???). Like def unimplemented: Nothing = Nothing (I say thought experiment, because I don’t think there’s any chance of that actually happening.)

#4

I’m teaching Scala to french undergraduate students.
In french, ??? reads “Trois points d’interrogation”.
It takes time to pronounce, which is sad, although bearable.
I wish there was a quick, one-or-two-syllable-name for it. Too bad.

#5

Why not call it the debtor, as it clearly identifies something that we have to fix in the future - a technical debt.

And debtor would fit so nicely into functor, monad and all that stuff.