Re: Language Choice and Coding style

[smize@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Samuel Mize)]

In article <nh3f3pppsl.fsf@paralysys>,
Nasser Abbasi <nasser@apldbio.com> wrote:

>I'd like to know why do C and C++ programmer 
>
>pchWriteInThisStargeAndHardToReadWayLikeThis while the Ada programmers 
>
>Write_In_Clear_And_Nice_Way_Like_This ??

My best understanding: In The Beginning, all we had was punched cards
and simple teletype interfaces, so everything was all capitals.  That's
all there were.  Also, compiler table-space was tight, so 6-character
or 8-character identifier limits were common.

Once lower case and longer identifiers became available, some people
started writing longer identifiers, while others stayed with the older
trs style.  This is where IdentifiersLikeThis came from.

I think this was first common in Pascal.  I don't think Pascal had
underscores in identifiers, I may be wrong.

Underscores also take a little more effort to type, especially if
you're not a good touch typist.  So, the MixedCase identifier is
still common in some quarters.

One advantage to using underscores avoids the problem of accidentally
reusing an indentifier.  If your compiler is case-insensitive, you can
use both DAndY (D and Y) and Dandy (Dandy) without realizing they're
the same identifier.

If your compiler is NOT case-insensitive, you've got worse nightmares
unless you are very very careful about your cases, or unless you use
all-lower or all-upper (which prevents MixedCase).

The Ada philosophy is that we accept some difficulty for the writer
to make things easier for the reader, so we generally use underscores
in that environment.  (Ada is case-insensitive, so you COULD use
MixedCase, but most style guides discourage it.)

Samuel Mize