using Hugo for quite some time I saw that the documentation was reordered from time to time. For some years I am working on a book about Hugo trying to catch up with the pace of development. I am again working on it and have a question about functions.
In the documentation functions are grouped by their syntax in so far as eg. all time-functions are grouped together: time.Format, time.Duration, time.Now etc. But functions have aliases like dateFormat, duration, now.
I guess that most people use the aliases in their projects as I do. In fact I didn’t know that they were aliases when I started to use Hugo, and I didn’t know it for quite some time.
As most code examples use aliases I guess that it is correct and recommended to use the aliases.
Is that correct or do you intend to promote the use of the verbose syntax in the future?
I won’t. I was puzzled why functions are listed according to their complete syntax in the navigation of the documentation, while everyone looks for the alias as it is more common.
When writing a printed book there is no search form and I have to consider whether I want to have compare.Default in my index or default. So I asked whether the developers tend to recommend the verbose syntax or the common terse one. Having both in the index is an option I would like to avoid.
As a non programmer I am still puzzled by variations like the above or like {{.Site.params.foo}} and {{site.Params.foo}}.
If you mean, “why functions are listed according to their canonical name”, it because they should be listed according to their canonical name.
If you’re writing a book you should include a brief discussion of context. If you understand context, and read the documentation for the global site function, neither you nor your readers should be puzzled.
I was puzzled why functions are listed according to their complete syntax in the navigation of the documentation, while everyone looks for the alias as it is more common.