From: Eero Saynatkari <ruby-forum-reg@...>
Date: 2006-01-21T05:57:42+09:00
Subject: Re: camelCase vs ruby_case

Zach wrote:
> Alrighty,
> 
>     I've another question I'd like to pose the Ruby community. Coming
> from a Java background, so I'm rather used to "camelCase" as opposed to
> what looks to be the standard "ruby_case". (For those who don't know, If
> a method is java was named "DoSomething"  it would be called
> "doSomething" in Java, and likewise "do_something" in Ruby.)
> 
> Arguments I've personally witnessed against Camel Case is Acronyms. If I
> have an "ABC" in Camel Case it I'd have to would be to break up the
> acronym like "aBC" if it appears at the beginning of the word. A lot of
> people try to push the word to the end, others say to have the whole
> acronym as lowercase "abc", but I think that is just a workaround for
> the problem not a solution.
> 
> Once I started programming in ruby, I was a little surprised at the use
> of the underscore, but I'm wondering the sentiments of the programmers
> out there. Do you prefer word breaks by underscore or case? Does is look
> more readable? Does anything else irk you with Camel Case and/or Ruby's
> preference?
> 
> Not trying to incite flame_wars or the like, looking for honest 
> opinions.

The big thing is that Ruby attaches semantic meaning to the naming
scheme: all constants must start with an uppercase letter, so your
classes and modules have CamelCaseNames. Because of this, seeing
something like obj.MethodName or even obj.methodName causes a ruby
programmer an involuntary double-take to ensure it indeed refers to
a method, not a constant. For this reason (and others that have been
battled over pretty much since the keyboard was invented), it is
preferred that the following is used:

  * Classes and modules use CamelCase
  * Constants use ALL_CAPS
  * Methods and variables use underscored_names

> -Zach


E

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