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From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Naming Conventions
Message-ID: <60352@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jan 91 20:28:25 GMT
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 65

As the library committee begins to propose classes and libraries to
standardize, I wish to mention a subject that will probably provoke
howls of anguish from all involved, namely: Naming Conventions.

My suggestion is that [besides being almost impossible to agree on]
naming conventions need to be agreed upon in order to have standarized 
software, and that the exact names chosen for standard libraries and
classes are important to their reusability.  Some names suggested for
use in standard libraries to date include, I believe:

complex
iostream
istream
ostream
String

which seem to represent at least three different styles of naming.

---

A humble suggestion: "simple" standard classes, that follow value 
semantics, and are intended as extensions to the built-in primitive
types of the language, should be named in a manner as similar as possible
to the built-in types of the language.  "Good" names for "simple" standard
classes then, might include:

complex
stream
string

Preferred names for these "not-built-in primitive-like" classes then,
would be lower case, not include underbars, be one word, or one
abbreviated word.  The extended primitive, and primitive-like set
of types available for C++ programmer would then include:

int 
long 
char
double
unsigned
complex
stream
string

---

I do not here suggest what proper naming conventions should be for
standard classes that are _not_ intended as "simple" extensions to
the built-in primitive types, but rather are intended to be used
in an "object oriented" manner, accessed via pointer or reference,
in a polymorphic manner.  The defacto standard for such classes seems
to me to be:  whole words, first letter capitalized, word breaks 
capitalized, no underbars:

Object
Set
Bag
MultipleWordName

I believe if the committee did decide that "simple" value semantics standard
classes should be all lower case like built-in types, whereas as "complicated"
standard classes intended to be used with derivation, polymorphism, etc,
start with a capital, then this would be _a_ good choice, helpful to 
C++ programmers by clarifying the difference in uses of these two 
types of classes.