From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2004-03-24T07:17:14+09:00
Subject: Re: Need some advice on PickAxe II

Dave Brown wrote:
> In article <40607376.2000802@infofiend.com>,
> Ben Giddings  <bg-rubytalk@infofiend.com> wrote:
> : Trying to understand your religion here.  If both methods and variables 
> : are named with underscores, not camel case how do you distinguish beween 
> : a method that instructs something to read a certain number, and a 
> : variable which keeps track of how many times something was read. 
> : read_number vs. read_number.
> 
> read_number <= reads a number
> number_read <= number of times something was read.
> 
> If an attribute name is a verb (or verb phrase), it does something.  If
> it's a noun, it is something.

My point is that 'read' is both a verb and a noun.  So is 'hit' and 
'run'.  Sometimes whether something is a verbal phrase or a noun depends 
on how you read it.

What's the problem with making it more visually distinct?

readNumber <- reads a number
number_read <- the number of times something was read

Now I don't care if number_read is actually done via a method that does 
some calculation before returning a value.  It *acts* like a 
variable/attribute, so it can be documented as if it were one.

What's the argument against this style of naming methods, aside from 
personal aesthetics?

Ben