Re: Three simple questions

[Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com>]

Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org> writes:

> kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) writes:
> > [...] Some would say this argues in favor of underscores not being
> > significant either, so you couldn't have a disinct Roll_Control
> > variable either, but "roll underscore control" sounds a lot smoother
> > than saying "each cycle we set the capital r roll capital c control
> > variable from the average of the lower-case r roll lower-case c
> > control, lower-case r roll capital c control, and capital r roll
> > lower-case c control variables"!
> 
> Nice example ;-).

I don't buy it.  I find it impossible to chat about programs of any
substantial size without writing them down -- that's what whiteboards
are for.

> As for underscores, if you put them consistently between words, you
> don't even need to mention them while discussing your program. And
> since Ada identifiers cannot begin with, have two consecutive or end
> with an underscore, there's no problem at all.

The same is true of casing -- if you use sensible conventions, case
sensitivity doesn't damage talking.  Eg, you might have "the type FOO",
and "the variable foo".

I still think case sensitivity is error prone.

> Note that this issue transcend programming languages and goes up to
> the more general human-computer interface field. ...

Reminds of a user-interface I heard of that used the C convention, where
an integer literal starting with "0" is octal.  It's bad enough in a
programming language, but to foist that on unsuspecting (non-programmer)
users is pretty horrible.

- Bob