Re: IDENTIFIERS in Upper Case

[steved@pacifier.com (Steve Doiel)]

In article <collins-2703970617290001@ratbert.cs.wm.edu>, collins@cs.wm.edu 
says...

>Many reading studies have been done for general text (not programs)
>that all seem to indicate that all uppercase "requires concentrated
>attention and is slow to decipher." (Jan White, _Graphic design for
>the electronic age_) One reason is the monotonous rectangularity of
>uppercase text. Lowercase letters differ from each other in shape
>and so are easier to recognize -- ascenders, descenders, and their
>lack provide distinctive visual patterns. Even the dot over the "i"
>helps to distinguish "i" from "m," "n," and "v" in handwritten text.
>
The keynote address at Tri-Ada 95 shed a lot of light on this subject
for me.  A small part of the subject was pattern recognition.

Take for example the following code

  IF a < b THEN
    DoProc1( arg )
  ELBE
    DoProc2( arg )
  END IF;

You may (or may not) have noticed that I misspelled the word 'ELSE'.  I
occasionally have the compiler catch such a misspelling for me.

Ok.  What's my point?  My point is that when you look at the
construct you don't necessarily read the keywords.  When you see the
structure, particularly if it is consistantly formatted, you recognize
the construct and look directly to the condition for the IF and the
actions taken for each branch.

It's much the same as when you see a stop sign.  You may not actually read
the word "STOP", but rather you recognize the shape of the sign and know
what it is immediately.

It is for this reason that I believe that whatever convention you choose
it should be one that allows as much instant pattern recognition as possible.

The coding convention we use is more elaborate than others I have heard
suggested but conveys more information at a glance.

>
>(P.S. I know That RD just favors a consistent style and is flexible
>      enough to adopt any style. Consistency is good.)
>
>                         Bob Collins, collins@cs.wm.edu
Agreed.

Steve Doiel
steved@pacifier.com