Re: ISO Studies of underscores vs MixedCase in Ada or C++

["Mike Bandor" <mbandor@satx.rr.com>]

I was once told by a TRW employee that on one particular project they had a
coding standard that used underscores in lieu of running the names together.
One of their "measures" of readability was to take copy of the code, remove
the underscores, and run it through a spell checker.  If it made it through
the spell checker, it was deemed "readable".


-- 
Mike Bandor, Software Engineer, BS-CS/SE
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Creator of MEGATERMS, Military Terms & Acronyms
http://home.satx.rr.com/bandor/megaterm/megaterm.htm

"Georg Bauhaus" <georg@strudel.futureapps.de> wrote in message
news:863cefjy6l.fsf@strudel.futureapps.de...
> >>>>> "Frank" == Frank J Lhota <NOSPAM.lhota.adarose@verizon.net> writes:
>
> : Since identifiers are generally phrases (nown phrases
> : for objects, verb phrases for procedures) and phrases often consist
> : of more than one word, I find the use of underscores to be quite
> : natural.
>
> But we should, I think, consider non-phrases or almost-non-phrases
> being used as identifiers, and "juxtapositions" of identifiers.  The
> isolated identifiers might be shorter and thus more easily broken
> into parts during the "reading process".
>
>   theFools(42);
>
>   the_fools (42);
>
>   the_Fools(42);
>
>   The_Fools (42);
>
> ...
>
>   y := doYouMind.ifI();
>
>   y := do_you_mind.if_i ();
>
>   y := do_You_Mind.if_I();
>
>   y := Do_You_Mind.If_I ();
>
>
>   takeAction(doYouMind.ifI(openTheWindow));
>
>   take_action (do_you_mind.if_i (open_the_window));
>
>   take_Action (do_You_Mind.if_I(open_The_Window));
>
>   Take_Action (Do_You_Mind.If_I (Open_The_Window));
>
> So in context, your "Shakespearean" argument might still apply,
> even if short identifiers are readable in dense mixed case?
>
> : There is an easy way to test which convention is more readable. Here
> : is one of Shakespeare's sonnets rendered in the mixed case format:
>
> :     FromFairestCreaturesWeDesireIncrease,
>
>
> Also, looking closely at letters, fonts certainly do matter.
> In a string such as "glubf()" it might or might not be easy
> to distinguish the two characters 'f' and '('. It depends on
> how ink would be spread, or on how pixels would appear on some
> display screen. You can see this comparing foo(a) and oof(a),
> using different fonts for the letters and symbols.
>
> Georg