Re: assign help!!

[Simon Wright <simon@pogner.demon.co.uk>]

sampson@nosc.mil (Charles H. Sampson) writes:

>      This has nothing to do with the original poster's issue, but I 
> have to disagree with you on this naming convention.  I much prefer the 
> one advocated by Ada Quality and Style: Type names should be general 
> singular nouns and object names should be specific singular nouns, ex-
> cept for predicates as the names for boolean objects.  (I don't just 
> prefer it.  I had some influence on its being in AQ&S that way.)  The 
> reason is that your program will be more readable AS AN ENGLISH SEN-
> TENCE.  For example
> 
>                        Error_Count : Natural;
> 
> can be read as "Error_Count is a natural number".  It could even be read 
> as "Error_Count: Natural".  Notice also, as the rationale to the naming 
> section of AQ&S says, it's Integer, Boolean, and Character, not Inte-
> gers, Booleans, and Characters.

Must say I agree with you on this one! A pity that AQ&S isn't
consistent, though: see eg Message_Code_Type in 5.4.6, Element_Type in
8.3.3, and many others ..

One point on derived (tagged) types; following someone else's posting
on various types of Track, I find it helps to use the plural form in
the package name and the undecorated singular for the type, eg

package Tracks is
  type Track is abstract tagged private;
..

package Friendly_Tracks is
  type Track is new Tracks.Track with private;
..

package Enemy_Tracks is
  type Track is new Tracks.Track with private;
..

Just my 2p.