Re: Type naming conventions: Any_Foo

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

On 2019-12-07 12:28, Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> On 12/7/19 1:57 AM, Randy Brukardt wrote:
>>
>> Agreed. Ada.Containers all have a function Element that retrieves a (copy
>> of) a single element object from the container. If the type was named
>> element, what would this function be called? Similarly, some of the
>> parameters are called Element (thus, Element : Element_Type in many
>> parameter lists); those also would need alternate names.
> 
> At a conference long ago (probably in the Ada-83 days), a presenter 
> claimed that well designed Ada has 90% of its operations named Put or 
> Get.

Horror. The result of blind OO convention :-)

> Get is an appropriate name for such an operation.

I follow the convention that procedure names are verbs ("Get") or verb 
phrases ("Remove_Last_Item") that describe the action or its effects, 
while function names are nouns ("Element") or noun phrases 
("Largest_Element") that describe the value returned by the function.

Therefore, IMO, "Get" is not a proper name for a function (unless the 
program models animal breeding, and the Get function returns all the 
offspring of a particular animal or pair of animals).

> More specifically, good names may depend on the data structure. When the 
> normal Get operation modifies the structure, as for queues and stacks, 
> Peek is a good name.

For stacks, Push and Pop.

For queues, Enqueue and Dequeue.

Functions should usually not modify their parameter structures; I use 
procedures for that.

> Value is a good name for most other cases.

Sometimes, but often it is too general. And it it ambiguous, because it 
can also mean "worth" or "usefulness".

-- 
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
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