From: Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@...>
Date: 2004-03-24T16:17:53+09:00
Subject: Re: proposal - enforce lower_case for variables and methods

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Simon Strandgaard wrote:

| Ruby does already enforce CamelCase for class/modules.
|
| 'camelCase' for variables/methods is easy to confuse with
| ClassNames. Its hard to distinguish for newcomers if they should
| use 'under_score' syntax or 'camelCase' syntax. If the person has a
| Java background it may be natual though (but being friendly to Java
| persons may hurt Ruby).
|
| However I don't use 'camelCase' and I tend to _avoid_ libraries
| which uses forces me to it. Luckily many of them provide underscore
| aliases.
|
| In Ruby2 it would be nice to get rid of 'camelCase', so that
| 'under_score' naming is enforced by the language.
|
| Should I submit an RCR about this ? Resistance ?  any good reasons
| to use camelCase ?
|
| -- Simon Strandgaard

I would consider this a very bad idea.
OTOH, I'm not sure that the suggestion of making case, and perhaps
underscored, non-semantic isn't a good idea.  I.e.,
Item === item === ItEm === i_T_e_M
But probably the special nature of the first letter should be
retained.  Everybody is alreay aware that, e.g., Polish isn't the same
as polish.  OTOH, NASA === N.A.S.A === nasa.
Analogies with natural languages are always slippery, but perhaps this
is a reasonable one.

Still, if the decision is to forbid camelCase, I won't loose any sleep
over it.  I just think it a poor, and somewhat arbitrary, idea.  You
could even go all lispish, and use internal asterisks for markers if
you wanted.  I'd think it a poor idea, but I could live with it.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFAYTVBE1guSVL8NK8RAh+TAKDcohymggF2AU5mYcYKDEKvbn3aLQCgtsfk
OekUXmm0LSekqH0PzkbMaMs=
=aPLB
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----