From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6f69b1cf0f02b9ac X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-02-02 19:21:34 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!news.tele.dk!204.94.211.44!enews.sgi.com!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.sttls1.wa.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "DuckE" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada References: <94hoeu$puk$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <95fbj0$nen$6@usenet.rational.com> Subject: Re: Sucking (was Re: How can I avoid Using a Semaphore? (long)) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Message-ID: <0PKe6.366080$U46.10801728@news1.sttls1.wa.home.com> Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 03:21:32 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.221.63 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.sttls1.wa.home.com 981170492 24.6.221.63 (Fri, 02 Feb 2001 19:21:32 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 19:21:32 PST Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:4904 Date: 2001-02-03T03:21:32+00:00 List-Id: > 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 >