"Dimitre" == Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> writes:
I agreed with all of that except:
Dimitre> 3. Consistent use of naming rules:
Yes, certainly, but not:
Dimitre> -- camelCase notation
This is a very bad convention.
In general, the naming convention should be consistent with both the
convention for the programming language as a whole (if there is one),
and with the natural language used for names and comments.
In the case of XSLT written in English, for instance, using hyphens
seems the most consistent style:
XSLT itself uses hyphens, e.g. generate-id (), xsl:strip-space
English actually uses spaces where XSLT uses hyphens, but as most
(all?) programming languages use spaces to separate tokens, and don't
allow multi-token names, either the hyphen, or (preferably) something
that resembles the effect of a space (such as an underscore) but is
easily distinguihed from it is best.
So for XSLT I recommend hyphens for multi-word identifiers.
In a language like Java, which uses camelCase in it's standard
libraries, you really have to go along with it, but it is a really bad
convention.
In a language like C++, which traditionally uses the underscore, you
should certainly not consider and other convention. Unfortunately
certain libraries (notably the entire win32 API) use the abysmall
CamelCase stuff, so your source can't be 100% consistent in this
case.
Use the underscore.
To see why camelCase is so bad compare:
aLongAndRatherUnreadableIdentifier
with:
an_even_longer_but_perfectly_clear_choice_of_name
(example comes from OOSC 2nd Edition p.880 *)
Dimitre> -- pParameter, vVariable, ... etc. Hungarian
Dimitre> notation examples.
If such a convention is to be used (and I prefer it on the whole),
again use hyphens (I prefer underscores again, but consitency with the
XSLT/XPath style mandates hyohens):
a-argument-names (for xsl:function)
g-global-variable-or-parameter-names
l-local-variable-or-parameter-names
This avoids shadowing global names, which should never be done.
No should you shadow any local names. Such a practice is a bug
waiting to hapen.
Don't follow the Hungarian notation practice of including the type in
the name - declare your types - and keep the routines (templates and
functions) short enough to be readable without scrolling.
* Object Oriented Software Construction 2nd Edition.
Copyright 1997 by Professor Bertrand Meyer.
I recomend every programmer, no matter what language (s)he uses, to
read this book at least once.
--
Colin Adams
Preston Lancashire
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