From: Kirk Haines <khaines@...>
Date: 2004-02-24T11:02:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Appropriate use of camelCase

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, David A. Black wrote:

> traditions, let alone perfectly good ones.  I don't know... I guess
> it's related to my general feeling that Ruby comes in for much more
> than its share of being treated like a preliminary draft of a language
> rather than like a language with a culture, stylistic and otherwise.
  .
  .
  .
> I'd find it easier to reconcile myself to camelCase if I felt that
> this area was also in flux in other languages.  But I don't think it
> is; I don't think many people write under_score variables in Java, for
> instance, nor that the choice is looked at as an even one.  

I don't see this as that much of a factor, personally.  It really boils 
down to aestetics.  The ripe_with_underscores_everywhere style is 
pervasive in the Perl world, as well, but there are quite a few people who 
program in Perl who use CamelCase either because that's just what they are 
used to, or because they think that CamelCase, at least in certain 
instances, looks better or is easier to read.

I personally have less discipline on this subject than I probably should 
have, but generally I use CamelCase for verbs and underscore_case for 
nouns.  It's easier for me to read a page of code if there is something 
like CamelCase jumping out at me when methods are being invoked.  It's 
personal preference and making the choice that is most efficient for my 
uses.  I imagine the same can be said for people like yourself who abhor 
CamelCase.  I imagine that if you were writing Java code, your inclination 
would be to use underscore_case (or snake_case; I kind of like that term), 
because that is what feels better on your brain, yes?


Kirk Haines