This seems like a perennial issue for me, but I'm bringing it up again
because I think it's worthwhile.
Since the beginning of this project, there hasn't really been much in the
way of direction given on naming standards for classes in Zend Framework.
This lack of consistency is what has yielded two nomenclatures for CLI
components ("Zend_Console" vs. "Zend_Controller_Response_Cli"), differing
terms for similar concepts ("Zend_Json_Decoder" vs. "Zend_Mime_Decode"),
both nouns and verbs in equal measure ("Zend_Loader" but not
"Zend_Translator"; alternately, "Zend_Translate" but not "Zend_Load"), and
so on.
I first brought this issue up in February 2007 and concluded, "Consistency
means predictability, which means being able to recall names without having
to check the manual every time. It's why most people can't use PHP's date or
string functions without looking at the documentation, for example."
There was a lot of agreement from the community (and a couple Zenders) but
no movement because the framework was preparing for 1.0. At the time I was
told, "There is life after 0.9.0," and so as we prepare for 2.0, I think
it's the perfect time to revisit this.
-Matt
