Re: on package naming, should the word "_pkg" be part of it?

[Jeffrey Carter <jeffrey.carter@boeing.com>]

John McCabe wrote:
> 
>    type Car_Type is
>        record
>           ....
>        end record;
> 
>    procedure DoSomething (Car : in out Car_Type);
> 
> could be replaced by:
> 
>    type Car is
>        record
>           ....
>        end record;
> 
>    procedure DoSomething (The_Car : in out Car);

I recall reading articles about the psychology of understanding programs
(sorry, Robert Dewar, I don't have references for this, either.
Hopefully it's not just random neurons firing in my brain) that stated
that the first few characters of an identifier are the most important in
determining what you're reading. Having identifiers that are identical
for the first few characters requires more time and effort to
understand, and results in more errors in understanding.

Although both _Type and The_ are ways to resolve the type/parameter name
conflict, The_ is worse because it makes the first four characters of
every parameter name the same.

I make the type name reflect what the type contains. For example

type Car_Info ...

procedure P (Car : in Car_Info ...

This is not a popular approach, though, because it requires thought
about every type name.

-- 
Jeffrey Carter