In comp.lang.python, Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote: > I don't know if this was the explicit motivation for PEP 8, but it > has always seemed valid to me: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel_case#Readability_studies
There are three things cited there. One is a NYTimes story from 2009 "Against Camel Case" starting out with criticism of "iPhone" which the author describes but won't use as it it too difiguring. That's not a programmer talking about program identifiers. The other two are more relevant, two studies one from 2009 and one from 2010, each of which seems to reach a conclusion at odds with the other. The 2009 one finds camelCase easier to read than snake_case, and the 2010 one finds people recognize snake_case identifiers faster than camelCase ones. I don't think that Wikipedia page helps your case. I personally abhor the use of inappropriate mid-word caps in English, which fits the NYT piece, but am only mildly against them in code. I had some bad expierences with code that forced use of capital letters in college and that has tainted me against excess capitals ever since. This is a highly personal reason that I don't expect anyone else to share. Here's a simple argument against camel case: when it becomes necessary to join identifiers, camel case requires modification of the original unit while snake case just adds stuff to beginning and/or end. One noteworthy example is when a negated version is needed. camelCase -> noCamelCase snake_case -> no_snake_case One of those is easier to "grep" for than the other. Elijah ------ grep-ability of code should on everyone's mond -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list