Author: Omid David Tabibi
Date: 06:52:37 03/05/04
Go up one level in this thread
On March 05, 2004 at 06:05:47, Daniel Clausen wrote:
>Hi
>
>Apart from a few exceptions (for pointers) I don't use HN-notation at all. (I
>know it's religion, so all I'm doing here is presenting my POV)
>
>For most projects it's enough for me to give good/descriptive names to
>variables. From the name alone I can derive the 'basic type' of the variable.
>With basic type I mean things like, string ('fileName'), integral type
>('numberOfEntries'), floating point type (almost never use that anyway :),
>boolean ('isEmpty'). For many projects it's not that important to always know
>the 'subtype', that is whether the integral type is now int, or short or long,
>especially not if you only want to understand the code. For hardware-near
>projects it's different I agree. (whether chess programming is such a case is an
>open question for me, most think it's hardware-near)
>
>In C/C++ I use the postfix 'P' for pointers, since there's typically no way to
>tell from a descriptive variable name, whether it is a pointer or not. And in
>C/C++ you have to know this in order to use it. ('.' instead of '->')
>
>
>>The main thing for me is to distinguish between signed/unsigned integers, see
>>pointers ('p') and to avoid having to describe a variable type by other means.
>
>About the signed/unsigned thing: in my projects, it's usually clear what it is:
>if the domain of the variable excludes negative numbers, it will be unsigned,
>otherwise signed. For example "numberOfEntries" will be unsigned, since a
>negative number simply doesn't make any sense.
When we are at it, why does almost everyone today uses camel case for namnig
variables?
doYouThinkThatCamelCaseIsEasierForReading
or_maybe_using_underscores_is_more_readable ?!
The coding conventions of Windows API, MFC, Java, C# all use camel case for
variables. STL is the only place where I can see underscores used.
>
>
>>By the latter, an example would be a bit of code which is dealing with a file,
>>where we have the file name and a handle. The name is stored as a string, the
>>handle as an int. If using hungarian I might use strFile and nFile, otherwise
>>I'd probably use FileName and FileHandle.
>
>I would *definitely* use 'fileName' and 'fileHandle'. If someone uses 'strFile'
>and 'nFile' since one is a string and the other an integer, how would you call
>another string-like property about the file, say permissions or the path? I
>would call the 'filePermissions' and 'filePath'. 'strFile' and 'nFile' are
>simply not descriptive enough. So HN here solves a problem I wouldn't have
>anyway.
>
>
>>The use of Hungarian notation is one of those computer-religous issues that
>>people get very worked up about.
>
>Agreed. :) Nevertheless I had sensible discussions with people from both camps
>and I could understand their reasoning behind the choice.
>
>
>>It probably doesn't help that it was named after a Microsoft guy!
>
>I tend to agree. ;)
>
>Sargon
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