Re: ANN: Introducing AdaBase - Thick database bindings for Ada

[jrmarino <dragonlace.cla@marino.st>]

On Saturday, May 21, 2016 at 3:13:00 AM UTC+2, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> If it's one word, then it should be Adabase. CamelCase is antithetical to some 
> basic Ada concepts, case insensitivity being one. Remember that many of us use 
> language-sensitive editors that will recapitalize identifiers when we load a 
> file. Resulting identifiers like Tisokeywords will be difficult to figure out 
> and understand. Enough of them may make it difficult enough to use your library 
> that people won't.

Artistic licence.  I can call it (AdaBase) whatever I want and stylize however I like.  I'll take a look at the types at the top of the package and see if underscores makes sense although I don't see why "Tisokeywords" would case an invasive automatic code-reformatting editor to have fits, unless you mean it must also be all lower case.

 
> I doubt if you can find 2 Ada developers who agree completely on matters of Ada 
> formatting, but there is a very broad consensus on something similar to the 
> formatting used in the ARM. (Even there you'll find all-lower-case identifiers 
> in Interfaces.C.) Differing significantly from it will get you some flak and 
> some people who will presume that it indicates that you're not very good at 
> using the language.


Their loss due to poor evaluating skills based on way too little information, no?  A style thoughout a project should be consistent (and looking through it now I can see AdaBase can improve in this regard, but there was a several month lag in development that helps explain it), but I don't think the style has to mimick ARM which I don't think is particularly great, only consistent.


> I wouldn't advocate that, though apparently Martin does. While I find some of 
> your formatting irritating, I have used libraries with much worse formatting 
> (based on looking only at package Adabase). Primarily I was trying to show you 
> what Martin had objected to. (But I would, if defining the language, make 
> CamelCase an error.)

Then you'd define that language as case-sensitive, something Ada is not, and that's the major flaw in people objection to how capitals are used.  While some people might use weird editors, they also might be in the great minority.
 
> > 2) Suggesting to rename types and enumerations to break all programs
> > currently using the library is a much bigger deal and what's the benefit?
> 
> I wouldn't suggest that. I would suggest in future using a style closer to the 
> community consensus and putting a little more thought into your names to make 
> them clearer and the code easier to read. As you have seen, it would lead to 
> greater acceptance of your libraries by others.

I seriously doubt anyone beyond beginner would have the slighly issue understanding the code or understanding the purpose of the variables or types based on the names.  I'll give you the style could be more uniform, and I'll give you I had no idea of the level of anal-retentiveness about things, but I will not concede that the quality or readability of the actual code is affected.  It seems this situation is the equivalent of moving Rafael Nadal's water bottles out of their perfect alignment before he serves -- something that shouldn't make a bit of differences but is crippling to somebody with OCD. :)