From: mheaney@ni.net (Matthew Heaney)
Subject: Re: IDENTIFIERS in Upper Case
Date: 1997/03/26
Date: 1997-03-26T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <mheaney-ya023680002603972250460001@news.ni.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 1997Mar26.185431.12742@nosc.mil
In article <1997Mar26.185431.12742@nosc.mil>, sampson@cod.nosc.mil (Charles
H. Sampson) wrote:
> I've heard it said that of all the possible case conventions that
>could be used in programming, the worst possible one is to require iden-
>tifiers to be all upper case. (This is one of those opinions that I
>agree with.) Often when I've heard this, there has been either an ac-
>company statement or an implication that studies have been done showing
>that this convention reduces comprehension, compared to the all-lower-
>case or the initial-caps ones. Can anyone point me toward any such
>study? I doesn't even have to be on the Internet. A reasonably acces-
>sible journal would be fine.
The book you want - and the book every software engineer should read - is
Designing The User Interface, by Ben Scheiderman. In the chapter 9 (of the
1st ed), Printed Manuals, Online Help, and Tutorials, he sites a study (by
Moskel) that showed comprehension scores were higher for lower-and-upper
case text.
There's also a quote (I know it's in the 2nd ed, but that's at work) that
the reading speed for mixed case is a certain percent faster (15%?) than
reading all-uppercase text.
You can contact Dr. Scheiderman at the addresses below. He'll have the
definative answer!
<mailto:ben@cs.umd.edu>
<http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/ben/index.html>
Matt
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Heaney
Software Development Consultant
<mailto:matthew_heaney@acm.org>
(818) 985-1271
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-03-26 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-03-26 0:00 IDENTIFIERS in Upper Case Charles H. Sampson
1997-03-26 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney [this message]
1997-03-27 0:00 ` Jeff Burns
1997-03-27 0:00 ` Matthew Heaney
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-03-28 0:00 ` William Clodius
1997-03-29 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Tom Moran
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Jerry Petrey
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-09 0:00 ` Graham C. Hughes
1997-03-27 0:00 ` Michael F Brenner
1997-03-27 0:00 ` Bob Collins
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Steve Doiel
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-29 0:00 ` Robert A Duff
1997-03-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-01 0:00 ` Charles Lindsey
1997-04-03 0:00 ` John English
1997-04-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-03-29 0:00 ` Doug Smith
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