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From: Peter Ammon <peter_ammon@rocketmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.programming,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: ISO Studies of underscores vs MixedCase in Ada or C++
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 21:20:33 -0700
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 comp.lang.c++:298 comp.lang.ada:95
Date: 2003-10-01T21:20:33-07:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Andy Glew wrote:
> I am in search of any rigourous,
> scientific, academic or industrial studies
> comparing naming conventions in
> C++ or similar languages such as
> Ada:
> 
> Specifically, are names formed with
> underscores more or less readable
> than names formed with MixedCase
> StudlyCaps camelCase?

[...]

Since camelCase and MixedCase seem to be getting routed by underscore 
proponents, here's one example of where something in mixed case is 
significantly more readable.  It's an excerpt from a bison grammar file 
I'm working on.

classmethod :
access_specifier method_type_specifier method_return_type_specifier 
method_declaration method_body

In the body, I reference things like $4, which (for those who don't 
know) refers to the fourth symbol in that space delimited list above. 
Can you quickly count which is the fourth?  I can't, since spaces look 
similar to underscores.

Compare to

classmethod :
accessSpecifier methodTypeSpecifier methodReturnTypeSpecifier 
methodDeclaration methodBody

The second is much more readable IMO.  The effect is even more dramatic 
without Usenet's line wrapping.

-Peter