Re: Sucking (was Re: How can I avoid Using a Semaphore? (long))

["DuckE" <nospam_steved94@home.com>]

> It seems clear enough what the style is...  Each package has a full name,
> with an acronymic prefix.  Then each identifier declared therein gets that
> same acronym as a suffix.  OK... nope, sorry! :-)  I think it would take
me
> more than 2 weeks to forget how I got along without that... :-)

Our code started in a different language (EPascal) where external functions,
procedures and type definitions were not easily discernable from local
definitions.  Knowing the origin of these definition "at a glance" without
having to look it up has its advantages.

In Ada, I could certainly see eliminating these acronyms in favor of
qualifying these external definitions with their origins (ie:
Ada.Text_Io.Put_Line ).

> The style of "aFoobar" and "anApteryx" for type names seems like a
different
> form of the "The_Foobar" cop-out for parameter names -- both meant to
spare
> us the trouble of thinking up a parameter name that would be more
meaningful
> than just repeating the name of the type, am I right?

Our use of "a" or "an" to start a type definition simply adds instant
recognition of an identifier as a data type without regard to context.  IMHO
this is not much different than quickly identifying the start of a sentence
with a capital letter.

What these conventions really buy us is time.  When I look at a block of
code a great deal of information is available as hints from the coding
convention that keep me from having to look elsewhere for definitions.

[snip]
>
> Best Regards,
> Mark
>