Naming convention for constructor functions

Naming convention for constructor functions

[Maciej Sobczak]

Hi,

What is the established convention for naming constructor functions?
I'm mostly concerned with constructors for limited types, but that
should not matter here.

One nice convention that I've seen is:

type Person (<>) is limited private;
function Make_Person (someparameters) return Person;

I can also imagine Create_T, Construct_T, etc., but Make_T seems to be
the shortest while still conveying the meaning properly. Is it also
most widely used?

--
Maciej Sobczak * www.msobczak.com * www.inspirel.com

Re: Naming convention for constructor functions

[Lucretia]

On Mar 12, 1:43 pm, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I can also imagine Create_T, Construct_T, etc., but Make_T seems to be
> the shortest while still conveying the meaning properly. Is it also
> most widely used?

IIRC, the style guide mentions both Make_T and Create_T. I can image
Constructor_T being a pain to type after a while, the first 2 convey
meaning and are short, so I'd pick one of those.

Luke.

Re: Naming convention for constructor functions

[Gene]

On Mar 12, 11:15 am, Lucretia <lucret...@lycos.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mar 12, 1:43 pm, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I can also imagine Create_T, Construct_T, etc., but Make_T seems to be
> > the shortest while still conveying the meaning properly. Is it also
> > most widely used?
>
> IIRC, the style guide mentions both Make_T and Create_T. I can image
> Constructor_T being a pain to type after a while, the first 2 convey
> meaning and are short, so I'd pick one of those.
>
> Luke.

That's interesting.  After teaching many beginning programmers I
finaly figured out that if I tell them to name procedures as verbs and
functions as nouns, they more quickly catch on as to the difference.
Therefore I claim there is a lot to recommend New_T as more
intuitive.  It also agrees with the allocator syntax.

Re: Naming convention for constructor functions

[Georg Bauhaus]

Lucretia wrote:
> On Mar 12, 1:43 pm, Maciej Sobczak <see.my.homep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I can also imagine Create_T, Construct_T, etc., but Make_T seems to be
>> the shortest while still conveying the meaning properly. Is it also
>> most widely used?
> 
> IIRC, the style guide mentions both Make_T and Create_T. I can image
> Constructor_T being a pain to type after a while, the first 2 convey
> meaning and are short, so I'd pick one of those.

As Gene has said, Constructor_T is a noun and therefore likely
to be mistaken for a type or object. A convention used
with Ada->JVM-Code compilers is New_T.

I've also seen nested factory packages P used; in this case
there is just P.Make without the type's name in the constructor
function.

As for "pain to type", I can hardly grasp the measure of stunning
ineffective ... stupidity that programmers seem to show when it
comes to using a computer for editing. There is *no* excuse
whatsoever to ignore editing programs and their capabilities of
"typing on command". Most editing programs are even better at
expanding than the mercilessly "helpful" automatic rewriters
in URL input fields or whatever is used in mobile phones.
This is true in particular of lauguage sensitive editors, such
as Emacs with Ada mode, GPS, ADT for Eclipse,  Gnatbench for
Eclipse, etc. etc..

You cannot become a carpenter if you don't know how to use a saw
for cutting wood.
How can you become a programmer if you don't know how to use
a computer for writing program text?

When someone complains that word XYZ is a pain to type he acts
like an apprentice complaining that it is a pain to drill a hole
using finger nails. [End of Steam]