Re: Warning: Religious naming convention discussion :-) [was: assign help!!]

[Jeff Carter <carter@spam.innocon.com>]

Jay Martin wrote:
> 
> "John G. Volan" <johnvolan@sprintmail.com> writes:
> ...
> >I only wish the original designers of Ada83 had clued into this style
> >from the start.  I find myself wishing Ada95 looked more like this:
> 
> >    Integer   : Integer_Type;
> >    Natural   : Natural_Type;
> >    Float     : Float_Type;
> >    Boolean   : Boolean_Type;
> >    Character : Character_Type;
> >    String    : String_Type;
> >    Duration  : Duration_Type;
> >    ...
> 
> Two thumbs up!
> 
> In fact wouldn't be cool if Ada forced all types to have "_Type" suffixes.
> Heh probably make those C hackers blood boil.
> 
> Jay

According to my religion, you guys are heretics. I will give the command
to my followers that you should be killed on sight. Now, if I only had
some followers ...

The problem with putting _Type on the end of all [sub]type names is that
it adds no information. Almost all uses of type names make it obvious
that the name is a type. So all you're doing is putting something on the
end to have a different name for the type, and preserve the name for use
by an object or, more typically, a subprogram parameter. So why not use
the shortest possible suffix, 2 characters: _T? Because it's ugly. But
it wastes fewer characters than the equally ugly _Type.

The only advantage of this approach is that it's a suffix, which is much
better than a prefix. In distinguishing two words, the initial
characters are the most important. Two words that are the same in the
initial characters and differ only in the later characters are more
likely to be confused than two words that differ in the first character.
Thus, the Booch school of prefixing all objects and parameters with The_
is an abomination.

Now, allow me to indoctrinate you into the one true religion. Like you,
I want to preserve the meaningful name (List, Queue, What_Ever) for use
by objects and parameters. Unlike you, I insist that suffixes add at
least some information. So I want my suffix to indicate what kind of
type we're dealing with, as well as differentiating the type name. I use
many; here are a few:

Numeric types: _Value, _Count, _Range

Enumeration types: _Id, _Name

Array types: _Set, _List

Record types: _Group, _Data, _Info

Task types: _Agent, _Controller

Private types: _Handle

I'm also creative in my use of parameter names, using Into, Before,
After, From, To, and so on to avoid as much of this as I can:

procedure Insert (Into : in out String; Before : in Positive; Value : in
String);

procedure Append (Onto : in out List_Handle; After : in Position; Item :
in Element);

However, List_Handle is probably a protected type, so instead we can
write

List.Append (After : in Position, Item : in Element);

Continue in your heresy, and we will burn you alive. Convert, and we
will merely behead you.

Ha! Nobody expects the Sappish Inquisition!
-- 
Jeff Carter  PGP:1024/440FBE21
Auntie-spam reply to; try ( carter @ innocon . com )
"Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail