Lars Torben Wilson wrote:
Daniel Convissor wrote:
Hi Lars:

In an earlier draft I had words to this effect, but it just got to be unwieldy, since it felt like if I explained that some people call class variables "properties", I should explain that others call them "members" or "member variables" or "attributes" or what-have-you. I'll work on it more. :)

When re-writing the Overloading section, it seemed "members" was the predominant word used already in the docs. It will be good to use a clear and consistent term througout the documentation. Considering the existing usage and the fact that "variables" already has a separate meaning for something else, I hope you'll consider using the word "members" here instead of "variables." Then explain that there are many other things people call them (and that they particularly hate being called "late for dinner").

Thanks,

--Dan

:)

Yes, this was along the lines of what I was planning to do. I haven't done a statistical analysis, but (as you noted) it seems to me that the preference already in the docs is to use 'member' as opposed to, say, 'property' or 'attribute'. I'll dig into some changes when I get home from work.


Cheers,

Torben


OK, I know I'm following up my own post, but I just wanted to put this out there: on the drive home, I realized what was bugging me about the use of the term "member" in this context: in typical OOP terminology, a method is also a member, as is a class constant. So while using the term "member" here might make things more consistent with some existing PHP documentation, my feeling is that the docs would overall be better served by fixing the existing usages to be more in line with common OOP terminology.

Personally I like "property" (as opposed to, say, "attribute" or "field") but it's not a super-strong preference. However, while "variable" certainly isn't anything to carry forward, I don't feel comfortable using "member" either. Sorry about that--it just offends my sense of pedantry. ;)

Anybody have any thoughts on this? I have no problem with updating the rest of the oop5 docs to match, no matter the outcome of our discussion.


Regards,

Torben

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