Stanislav Malyshev wrote:
> RC>> I think it is helpful for the PHP user base to be
> RC>> able to comprehend the use of a function based on the name.
> On its name, yes - but not on underscores in it. Do you really think
> anybody will remember/care for those underscores?
Yes.
I find it annoying having to look up reference manuals for every
function, to figure out whether or not I need to use underscores, and
if so, where in the function name should they be used.... the general
point in *having* the underscores is that they provide a visual separation
of words, so they can be read (and comprehended) more easily, so the
purpose of the function is less ambiguous. Without them, the name
becomes less legible.
Much of the time I already know the function names, I just don't know
all of the choices that were made on whether it's "*_num_rows" or
"*_numrows", on whether it's "is_var" or "isvar". I do lots of code that
uses both mysql and postgres, and it's an ongoing hassle to not only
switch the family name (pg/mysql), but to also switch out other names
because of a lack of consistency, and never be quite sure what the
right thing to do actually is.
> Well, life's female canis familiaris. No naming scheme would resolve the
> problem that if you make typos it probably won't compile.
To a point, yes... Which to me, means we should make *generating* the
proper text as easy as possible for the end user. It will confuse the
users with most of the functions having "family_word_word" formats and
some which switch to "family_wordword" (or even worse, family_wordword_word).
> RC>> skilled coders can differentiate between 89DEGU567S_open() and
> RC>> 89D3GU5675_open().. it's because new language adopters *can't*
> RC>> differentiate.
> I don't see how it proves that is_alpha is better than isapha.
The point is that we don't seem to have any reason to force newbies to work
harder, to look at names super-closely, to guess at the particular
invention-of-the-day for function naming. People who have typed the function
200 times know it already. People still in between 1 and 200 uses or so
are wasting lots of their time guessing and debugging, or re-reading manual
pages.
> For
> unwashed masses, it's manual lookup anyway - they have no idea how it even
> _could_ be called. For people knowing C and descendants, it's a cookie
> (not http one, the pleasant one) - one more function they already know.
Well, put me somewhere in between unwashed and just plain annoyed
when I can remember the function's name, but not the arcane non-ruleset
for the function word delimiting. I certainly don't consider expertise
in obtuse naming to be that much of a cookie. More of a burden, a training
problem, a learning curve problem.
-Bop
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