From: RichardOnRails <RichardDummyMailbox58407@...>
Date: 2007-11-27T04:55:06+09:00
Subject: Re: False positives in editing data

On Nov 21, 8:42 pm, Alex Young <a...@blackkettle.org> wrote:
> RichardOnRails wrote:
> > On Nov 21, 12:39 pm, Clifford Heath <n...@spam.please.net> wrote:
> >> RichardOnRails wrote:
> >>>>>>        sName =~ /^([\d]+)?\.?([\d]+)?\.?([\d]+)?\.?/
> >>>> sName
> >>> Did you draw attention to this because of the Hungarian notation?  If
> >>> so,  do you think I'm unwise to adopt the style once advocated by
> >>> Charles Simoni, super-programmer and co-founder of a giant software
> >>> company?
> >> Yes. Adamantly, and definitely yes.
>
> >> I might have been a bad idea when he had it, even though to his
> >> credit he was trying to make the best of a bad situation, where
> >> MS had bought the worst C compiler on the planet because the good
> >> ones weren't for sale - they could make more money *not* selling
> >> to MS. Because of a spate of bugs and bad code churned out by the
> >> MS software factory, many caused by type mismatches on function
> >> parameters that weren't detected either at compile time or at
> >> runtime, Hungarian notation *might* have been a good idea once.
>
> >> It's definitely *not* a good idea with modern C, and even less of
> >> a good idea with Ruby.
>
> >> Clifford Heath.
>
> > Hi Clifford,
>
> >> It's definitely *not* a good idea with modern C, and even less of
> >> a good idea with Ruby.
>
> > I don't know anything about Microsoft's choice of compilers.  But I
> > used several C compilers in the '80s,  and all cases found Hungarian
> > notation helpful.  I don't think Microsoft's initial choice of
> > compilers is relevant to my and other's successful employment of that
> > convention.
>
> > Why would it be a bad idea with modern C compilers or with Ruby?  You
> > offer no reason.  All it does is add one or two letters before names!
> > That doesn't bother any human or compiler or interpreter.
>
> It depends on the type of Hungarian that you're using, and it's not
> clear from your code sample which it is.  If you're using an
> abbreviation prefix to denote a semantic difference within a type, then
> that's (potentially) useful, in both Ruby and C:
>
>    us_username = read_unsafe_input()
>    s_username = sanitise(us_username)
>
> with us_ meaning unsafe and s_ meaning safe, for example.  Not something
> I'd use myself, but I can see the utility.  If it's denoting a class,
> then it's not something I can see as useful, in either C or Ruby.  In C,
> you're duplicating the compiler's type-checking, and in Ruby,
> duck-typing means that you shouldn't need to care; it becomes
> readability-damaging line noise.
>
> --
> Alex

Hi Alex,

> abbreviation prefix to denote a semantic difference within a
> type, then that's (potentially) useful, in both Ruby and C:
>    us_username = read_unsafe_input()
>    s_username = sanitise(us_username)

I like that.

> If it's denoting a class,
> then it's not something I can see as useful

I like to know merely by inspection whether a referent denotes an
integer, a string, a hash or an array of such things.  I'd like to
avoid "Syntax error" simply because I failed to include a to_s, to_i,
[] or whatever.  I really can't see why a prefixed lower-case letter
or two before a camel-case object name can create so much discussion
irrelevant to the question at hand.

Maybe I'll have so "sanitize" all the code I post to exemplify a
coding issue.

Thank you for your response,  notwithstanding my lack of total
agreement.

Best wishes,
Richard