From: Ezra Zygmuntowicz <ezra@...>
Date: 2005-12-09T04:40:41+09:00
Subject: Re: They say I write Ruby like Perl


On Dec 8, 2005, at 6:42 AM, James Edward Gray II wrote:

> On Dec 8, 2005, at 8:27 AM, Rich wrote:
>
>> I'd be interested to know *why* it is a language convention, and more
>> important why it is a lanaguage convention that from this thread it
>> seems rubyists vigorously insist upon?  For those of us who were
>> "raised" with a language like Java (or as some on this list may say,
>> brain damaged ;-), lowerCamelCase seems more pleasing to the eye than
>> identifiers_with_underscores.
>
> We feel exactly the opposite.  That's your *why*.  ;)
>
> The human eye picks out words by shape.  We use spaces between  
> words to separate those shapes into easily digested chunks.   
> OneLongWord is not a shape we are use to, so we have to stop and  
> think.  Unfortunately, spaces aren't allowed in programming  
> variables.  The _ character is allowed though and the next best  
> thing, so we go with that.
>
> This is all my opinion, of course.
>
> James Edward Gray II
>
>

I have also heard that the underscore_name technique is easier for  
Japanese folks to read and since ruby was written by Matz, that is  
one reason to follow this convention.

Cheers-

-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
ezra@yakima-herald.com