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From: sjl@amdahl.UUCP (Steve Langdon)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: C Compatibility Problems - SKEL.c
Message-ID: <1317@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Mar-85 21:35:07 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.1317
Posted: Wed Mar 20 21:35:07 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Mar-85 02:18:32 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 56

The community of Mac programmers using C are faced with an unpleasant
compatibility problem.  Megamax C naming conventions do not follow
Apple's recommendations and it is very painful to convert programs
written for the Megamax compiler to run with compilers that do adhere to
Apple's standard.  I discovered the problem while attempting to bring
up SKEL.c on Mac C (from Consulair Corp.) and SUMacC.

It is extremely tedious to translate a large number of identifiers even
when you have the UNIX text processing tools available.  A Mac user
without UNIX access would have a really bad time performing the conversion.
I, along with many UNIX users dislike reaching for the shift key, but I
consider Megamax's decision to use lower case names a piece of crass
stupidity.  An imperfect standard is better than no standard in this
situation, and I hate to think about the hours that will be wasted if
Megamax do not conform.

I have a translated version of SKEL.c which works with Mac C and compiles
cleanly on SUMacC (I should have the SUMacC version running soon).  It
should be posted soon but I am attempting to coordinate the distribution
with the author and the original (Megamax) C translator.  Mac C and
SUMacC are fairly compatible so a few #ifdefs are sufficient to take care
of the differences between these compliers.

For those unfamiliar with Apple's naming convention I have included the
pertinent section of the SUMacC document.

>Naming conventions.
>
>     Since Pascal is case insensitive,  some  of  the  names
>present in the original Pascal header files had inconsistent
>case conventions.  Apple realized the headaches  this  could
>cause  for C programmers, and in October 84 released a small
>set of rules that govern case in names.  When you invent new
>names, you should use these rules.
>
>1.  The first character of a name is upper case if the  sym-
>    bol  is:   a  toolbox routine name, a type, an assembler
>    global symbol.
>    e.g.: InitGraf, MoveTo, ProcPtr, MonkeyLives
>
>2.  The first character of a name is lower case if the  sym-
>    bol is:  a field, a constant, a variable.
>    e.g.: shiftKey, everyEvent, fInvisible
>
>3.  If the name consists of multiple words, the subwords are
>    capitalized.
>
>4.  If there are acronyms within the name,  they  are  cased
>    the same.
>    e.g.: fCTS, ctsHold, TEHandle, TENew, eofErr
>
-- 
Stephen J. Langdon                  ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun,nsc}!amdahl!sjl

[ The article above is not an official statement from any organization
  in the known universe. ]