Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Michael says

<<> However, when stuff like _TYPE is added at the end of each type by
> FIAT of a quality standard, you not only have changed the meaning
> of quality from something that works well and is easily fixed to
> something that is regimented, but you also have lost the reliability,
> lost the maintainability, and lost the desire to read that code.
> It is no longer cool code.
>>

Now here I disagree. If you have programmers (I don't care whether they
are maintaining code or building it), and their orientation is that they
react to quality standards by deciding that it means they cannot write
cool code, and they want to do their own thing, then the one and only
preferable solution is to get rid of these programmers. What you refer
to as regimentation is something that quality workers in all fields
must learn to accept. Yes, I realize that the programming field tends
to be full of mavericks who insist on writing neat cool code, but this
is a signal weakness of the field, not a strength.

In practice I find one of the advantages of Ada is that Ada tends to
encourage what you would like to call "regimented" environments, and 
thus to scare off the "cool neat code" crowd. 

Whether the rule of adding _Type at the end of type names is a good one
is one that should be debated on its merits, but Michael's contribution
quoted above seems to suggest that it should be rejected solely on the
basis that it is a rule. That is not a legitimate argument. Some quality
standards can indeed be absolute. Everyone agrees, or should agree that
consistency of code style is an important requirement in any project,
and some aspects of coding style can and should be absolute rules (for
a look at the absolute rules enforced by the GNAT project, look at the
style.adb unit, which is activated by the internal GNAT-project-only
switch -gnatg. We require the use of -gnatg in all GNAT code.

This switch enforces a number of rules ranging from the trivial (no use
of tab characters or trailing blanks in code) to more significant (all
subprograms except main programs at the program library level must have
separate specifications).

Note that I agree that enjoyment plays an important part in any work, and
that "desire to read that code" is important. But competent programmers
find that following "regimentation" makes code more uniform, and therefore
much pleasanter to read. 

Robert Dewar