Add useful "predefined" streams

[briancavalier]

The ones that come to mind immediately are numeric ranges, ie all integers from 0 to 99, or all decimal numbers from 0 to 9, stepping by 0.25. They're easy to create using most.iterate, but maybe slightly verbose without arrow functions:

// ES5
most.iterate(function(x) { return x + 1; }, 0).take(100); // integers 0 - 99
most.iterate(function(x) { return x + .25; }, 0).take(10 / .25); // 0, .25, .5, .75, 1.0, 1.25 ...

// ES6
most.iterate(x => x + 1, 0).take(100); // arrows ftw
most.iterate(x => x + .25, 0).take(10 / .25); // yay arrows, division is still annoying

In writing that out, I also noticed how annoying it is to have to divide to do the take correctly :(. So, for example, maybe we could provide something like most.range that hides the details:

most.range(0, 100); // integers 0-99
most.range(0, 10, .25); // 0, .25, .5, .75, 1.0, 1.25 ...

There may be other useful streams, but numbers are the ones the came to mind first, and numeric ranges are generally useful in lots of situations.

Are there other predefined streams that seem like they'd be broadly useful? Should we just provide numeric ranges? Would it be better to stick with base building blocks for now? Is this the slippery slope that leads to a huge, unwieldy API?

[unscriptable]

Is this the slippery slope that leads to a huge, unwieldy API?

🎱 Signs point to "yes".

It'd be nice to see what the community ends up doing with most.js, then think about what to pre-create. Hmmm.... then again, the community might need help knowing what they can do with most.js. My instinct says that examples might be a better place to show users what they can do. Does it make sense to create some helpers inside the examples?

If we decide to add helpers like these to most.js, perhaps put them in ancillary files? e.g. most/range or most/numeric?

[briancavalier]

Does it make sense to create some helpers inside the examples?

Seems like a great idea. If several people say something like "jeez, I do that all the time, why isn't that built in???", we could consider pulling it in.

If we decide to add helpers like these to most.js, perhaps put them in ancillary files? e.g. most/range or most/numeric?

Yeah, I like that too. We can probably make the call as needed, since some things might end up being so universally useful that we'd want them in main, while others we might not.

[briancavalier]

It'd be nice to see what the community ends up doing with most.js

I think this is the way to go. Similarly, we can keep an eye out for things that seem to be "missing", ie if we consistently hear "I sure wish it was easier to do X", then we can create an issue to discuss providing convenience method X.

So, I we should open more focused issues as they arise. Closing.