Re: Type naming conventions: Any_Foo

[Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid>]

On 2019-12-05 22:47, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> On 12/5/19 8:49 PM, Niklas Holsti wrote:
>>
>> Either of those is itself defining a convention. It seems every 
>> enumerated type would then get an "_ID" or "_Name" suffix. Or 
>> something similar.
> 
> Many enumeration types are identifiers or names; some are not.

I don't really agree with that "many", but it is perhaps a subjective 
issue -- how one thinks of an enumeration.

But if a value of the type Weapon_Id is an identifier of a Weapon, how 
can you defend saying

    Weapon : Weapon_Id;

The variable Weapon does not represent a Weapon; it represents an 
identifier of a Weapon, so the name Weapon is IMO a little misleading.

> A convention would end every enumeration type name with the same suffix, 
> even when it's not appropriate. Well chosen type names would perhaps 
> result in many such names ending in the same suffix, but not all.
> 
> As an example, the PragmAda Reusable Components have 13 lines returned by
> 
> grep -i "type  *[a-z0-9_]*  *is  *(" *.ad?
> 
> 8 of them end in _I[Dd] (I really should make the casing consistent), 1 
> in _Name, and 4 others.

Thanks for sharing this statistic.

(And yes, the issue of "ID" vs "Id" is a wide-spread annoyance. I tend 
to think that "ID" is an acronym for "Identification Document", while 
"Id" is an abbreviation for "Identifier". Obviously "Id" is more often 
apt for SW.)

> Had I used the convention of _ID rather than making the effort to
> think of good names, about 1/3 of those names would be less
> meaningful.
I agree with that, of course.

> Had I used a meaningless convention like _T for all 
> type names, all of those names would be less meaningful.

I don't agree with that, and of course I would include "_Id" or "_Name" 
or whatever is appropriate and meaningful, before the "_T".

> Meaningful names are easier to read, and ease of reading is an
> important goal of  S/W engineering.

Hell yes. But for me, the "_T" helps that goal, by letting me say either

    Weapon : Weapon_T;

or

    Weapon_Id : Weapon_Id_T;

depending on the case at hand.

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
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