From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1014db,d95b511473b3a931 X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public From: The Amorphous Mass Subject: Re: Language Choice and Coding style Date: 1996/06/27 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 162412376 distribution: world references: x-sender: robinson@green.weeg.uiowa.edu content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA mime-version: 1.0 newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Date: 1996-06-27T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On 23 Jun 1996, Robert Dewar wrote: > James said > > " Except for the "Hungarian notation" silliness, the idea of > spellingVariableNamesLikeThis was originally a Smalltalk and/or Pascal > idiom, and it has become nearly universal in GUI libraries (again I > think because of Smalltalk's influence). C programmers use variable names > > > I really think this is Pascal influence rather than Smalltalk influence, > since it predates the Smalltalk craze. Remember that Pascal had an > out-of-proportion influence on PC's because of Turbo-Pascal. The Microsoft > interfaces, on which many C programmers grow up, are Pascal derived (they > even used Pascal calling sequences, and needed special treatment from C > to get the calling sequence right). As I said in an earlier message, I > trace the StyleOfSmashingWordsTogetherWhichIDoNotLike to UCSD Pascal. The MacOS interface usesThatConventionToo, yearsBeforeWindowsWas Released, and although the Mac used Pascal calling conventions as well, it is well known that the designers of MacOS borrowed heavily from Xerox PARC. Since the Pascal I learned used very standard-looking variable names, and since both the Mac Toolbox and the Smalltalk class library useTheMashedTogetherIdiom I figured that it must be a Smalltalk thing, and subsequent GUI libraries borrowed either from MacOS (including its Pascal interface -- apparently Pascal calling conventions make the OS's life easier?) or from Smalltalk. > P.S. When using the default file names in GNAT, this style really is > unpleasant, since the default file names are all lower case (thankyou > Unix for being so particular about casing of file names :-) and you > get a file name like styleofsmasgingwordstogetherwhichidonotlike.ads > which is really charming :-) Yummy. > In an earlier note, someone (perhaps tongue in cheek) suggested that > the reason that this style is popular is that programmers are too lazy > to press the shift key and reach for the underline. It's hard to believe > that coding styles could be significantly affected by such silliness > but who knows? It would explain the prevalence of code filled with variable names like x, i, n, t, c, ... -- James Robinson "Because we are returning a copy for postfix ++ james-robinson@uiowa.edu expressions, statements such as (c++)++; won't robinson@cs.uiowa.edu work as expected." -- Weiskamp & Flamig, _The_Complete_C++_Primer_, 2nd ed.