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From: mat@mole-end.UUCP (Mark A Terribile)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Naming Conventions
Summary: Today is a red herring
Message-ID: <468@mole-end.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jan 91 09:25:53 GMT
References: <60352@microsoft.UUCP> <CIMSHOP!DAVIDM.91Jan9105408@uunet.UU.NET>
Organization: mole-end--private system.  admin: mole-end!newtnews
Lines: 34

> Jim> As the library committee begins to propose classes and libraries to
> Jim> standardize, I wish to mention a subject that will probably provoke howls
> Jim> of anguish from all involved, namely: Naming Conventions.
  . . .
> Jim> My suggestion is that [besides being almost impossible to agree on]
> Jim> naming conventions need to be agreed upon in order to have standarized
> Jim> software, and that the exact names chosen for standard libraries and
> Jim> classes are important to their reusability.
 
> Knowing the names of objects promotes their reuse.  Without some convention,
> finding an object to reuse in a series of massive libraries is like trying to
> find the meaning of a word in a dictionary when you don't know how to spell
> the word.

It is my belief, and perhaps mine alone, that if we are working with the
Standard, then just about everything in the `library' ought to be provided
by parameterization.  Even when it's not quite clear what the ideal
parameterization is, the matter should be considered carefully.

Then the problem is not what the types are named, but what the templates are
named.  Of course, the types must be created, too, perhaps by a standard--but
excludable--header of some sort.

My own preference for user-defined types is to capitalize the initial letter
or abbreviation, and no more.  I don't yet know what to make of templates;
they are likely to be interesting no matter what.

For objects, if they must be created visible to the user, I strongly prefer
lower case unless there is some good reason for the upper case (e.g. the
`word' is an acronym).
-- 

 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile