I'd forgotten Baecker and Marcus was on my bookshelf! They seem to be keener on *colour* as a typographical code.
BTW, I do think initial capitalisation is more readable in short (two-three small words) bursts than it's going to be in sentences. Probably to do with the way we scan and read in chunks of about that size. Anything longer, and yes, the underscores probably help lead the eye along. Peter -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frank Wales Sent: 02 December 2003 14:38 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: PPIG discuss: Effect of letter casing on readability On 12/02/03 13:52, Peter McKenna wrote: > In spite of programmers' fondness for non-alphabetical characters, surely > fooBarBaz is more readable than foo_bar_baz?! <span mode="boggle"> IFindItHardToSeeWhyInternalCapitalisationShouldBeObviouslyMoreReadable. </span> > Humans - even programmers - > are more accustomed to reading words without underscores (which are not > always easy to see anyway). Good,_it_makes_them_get_out_of_the_way_of_the_letters. Dots.can.be.good.too,.where.they're.allowed. > Besides, fooBarBaz has two fewer characters to type! <span mode="spock"> Ah, but the needs of the many [readers' eyeballs] outweigh the needs of the few [typing fingers]. Or the one [lazy programmer]. </span> I was initially slightly surprised that no-one's mentioned Baecker and Marcus's 'Human Factors and Typography for More Readable Programs'. But I just skimmed through it, and they don't actually seem to address Stephen's direct question at all, despite having lots of other examples and assertions to do with readability and presentation. A quick glance at the other stuff on our bookshelves didn't reveal anything that looked obviously better. But the book does have a lengthy set of references (with more entries for some guy called Green than some other guy called Knuth), so that might be a useful starting point. Or you could look up subsequent work by the authors and their cohort, since they showed an interest in this stuff a whille ago: Ronald Baecker, Aaron Marcus, Ilona Posner, Hugh Redelmeier, Alan Rosenthal, Cynthia Wong. As a matter of pure nosiness, Stephen, is there a wider problem you're trying to address? -- Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] (And don't call me Shirley.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
