D naming style?

[Stewart Gordon]

Michel Fortin wrote:
<snip>
> Here it is: <http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dstyle.html>.

My style more or less resembles this, except:

- Each indentation level is a tab character (by far the most sensible 
way to do things)
- Usually one blank line between class methods, and two between 
module-level declarations
- I nearly always use /+ ... +/ or // to comment out code
- I've variously used UpperCamelCase or ALL_CAPS for enum names, though 
for enum value names it's always ALL_CAPS.  (Phobos breaks both these 
rules in places, e.g. FileMode.Out.)

> I've also written a guide on how to name things, but, as far as I know, 
> nobody is following it at the moment. Hopefully it can be improved and 
> serve as the basis for naming things in Phobos (although I'm beginning 
> to be skeptical about that). See 
> <http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?DProgrammingGuidelines>.

1. That page contradicts itself - first
`Accessor functions can be nouns, adjectives, or third-person verbs with 
an object.`
then
`Boolean properties should start with "is", "has", or a modal verb such 
as "can" and "should".`

even giving "enabled" as an example in each case.

2. `[should we allow some exceptions here? sin(x) comes to mind] `
What is this supposed to mean?

3. One-letter parameter names are, IMO, OK for property setters and 
maybe other cases where the nature of the parameter is obvious from the 
function name.  And when they're the likes of 'x' and 'y' for Cartesian 
coordinates and what they're the coordinates of is obvious.  But 
otherwise, I agree that they ought to be avoided.

4. Maybe you could add something on the question of what to name the 
internal variable that keeps track of a property's value, in order to 
distinguish it from the property itself.  I personally tend to use the 
property name prefixed by an underscore.


Stewart.