[zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>]

Hi there,

I would propose a small addition to the naming conventions.

A list of recommended names is already provided in
http://incubator.apache.org/zetacomponents/community/implementation.html#general-guidelines
however there is nothing proposed for variables like arrays.

As an example you can compare the two following snippets

Without "List" variable:
$rows = fetchSomeRows();
foreach($rows as row)
    [....]

With "List' variable:
$rowList = fetchSomeRows();
foreach($rowList as $row)
    [....]

The rationale for such variable names is that adds a bit more
semantics on what the variable
is supposed to contains. It should also help to avoid typos which
makes debugging harder.

What do you think ?

:)

--
Jérôme Renard
http://39web.fr | http://jrenard.info | http://twitter.com/jeromerenard

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Derick Rethans <de...@apache.org>]

On Mon, 7 Mar 2011, Jerome Renard wrote:

> I would propose a small addition to the naming conventions.
> 
> A list of recommended names is already provided in
> http://incubator.apache.org/zetacomponents/community/implementation.html#general-guidelines
> however there is nothing proposed for variables like arrays.
> 
> As an example you can compare the two following snippets
> 
> Without "List" variable:
> $rows = fetchSomeRows();
> foreach($rows as row)
>     [....]
> 
> With "List' variable:
> $rowList = fetchSomeRows();
> foreach($rowList as $row)
>     [....]
> 
> The rationale for such variable names is that adds a bit more
> semantics on what the variable
> is supposed to contains. It should also help to avoid typos which
> makes debugging harder.
> 
> What do you think ?

I don't think we should name variables according what type they are. 
We'll end up with $iCounter etc as well. $rows (plural) is IMO perfectly 
acceptable.

cheers,
Derick
-- 
http://derickrethans.nl | http://xdebug.org
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twitter: @derickr and @xdebug

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Maxime Thomas <ma...@gmail.com>]

2011/3/7 Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>

> Derick, Patrick,
>
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 7:09 PM, Patrick ALLAERT
> <pa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2011/3/7 Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>:
> [...]
> >
> > There is nothing wrong being explicit about the content of the
> > variable, but I would refrain from using types like "Array", "List",
> > "Integer",...
>
> Maybe I have not been clear enough.
>
> The point is not to name a variable acording to its type for ints,
> floats etc, etc.
>
> The point is to provide a visual/semantic help for arrays (or
> hastables) *only* by suffixing them.
> Using a variable in its plural form might not be ideal for some
> people, this is what I am
> trying to adress with this idea, which maybe is a stupid one.
>
> The rest (int and others) remains unchanged.
>
> :)
>
> --
> Jérôme Renard
> http://39web.fr | http://jrenard.info | http://twitter.com/jeromerenard
>


Ok, so if I understand it well : you put List after variables that you will
use in foreach.
Do we put other variables types in foreach than arrays ?

For the name rules for variables, I personnaly used the "_id" suffix
to semantically design a integer variable, the "s" suffix for lists (it
could be also more gramatically based rules : child / children) and by
default vars are strings.
For small treatments, not meaningful, I prefer to use "anonymous" variable
names like $i, $j, $k, $v... It could be for example, a generic function
that processes an array.

-- 
Maxime
maxime.thomas@wascou.org | www.wascou.org | http://twitter.com/wascou

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>]

Bertrand,

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 8:07 PM, Bertrand Dunogier <bd...@ez.no> wrote:
> On 21 March 2011 19:26, Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 19:20 jerome@gimli/private/tmp/ezpublish% grep -nR "[a-z]List" kernel
>> lib | wc -l
>>    6012
>
> I have given my opinion, not the 10 past years authors' :-)

Yeah I know, that was just to tease you a bit ;)

> There are indeed a few situations where I believe a word makes much more
> sense than a simple 's', but not generally speaking.
>>
>> Anyway, let's say my idea was stupid/useless/not relevant/other and
>> close this thread.
>
> Sorry if my answer was irrelevant and made you feel that way... I thought I
> had merely given my view about the proposal you had made.

Ho, everything is OK. The discussion showed my idea was not as good as I
initially thought. I would just avoid losing time on this (bad) idea and focus
and the rest in order to get a release.

Cheers :)

-- 
Jérôme Renard
http://39web.fr | http://jrenard.info | http://twitter.com/jeromerenard

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Bertrand Dunogier <bd...@ez.no>]

On 21 March 2011 19:26, Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 19:20 jerome@gimli/private/tmp/ezpublish% grep -nR "[a-z]List" kernel
> lib | wc -l
>    6012
>
I have given my opinion, not the 10 past years authors' :-)
There are indeed a few situations where I believe a word makes much more
sense than a simple 's', but not generally speaking.

Anyway, let's say my idea was stupid/useless/not relevant/other and
> close this thread.
>

Sorry if my answer was irrelevant and made you feel that way... I thought I
had merely given my view about the proposal you had made.

-- 
Bertrand Dunogier

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>]

Hello,

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Bertrand Dunogier <bd...@ez.no> wrote:
> Jerome,
>
> On 18 March 2011 12:03, Tobias Schlitt <to...@schlitt.info> wrote:
>>
>> Hmm, I generally don't like to change my coding habbits and by now we
>> usually use the plural form for stuff like $rows, $elements and friends.
>> This generally indicates that you have a collection of something, which
>> you can iterate over or access dedicatedly. I find it quite clear and
>> intuitive.
>
> I have to agree with this. Plural perfectly fits here, imho, and if "some"
> can't cope with that, it means their english ain't good enuf' and they
> should improve it :-)

19:20 jerome@gimli/private/tmp/ezpublish% grep -nR "[a-z]List" kernel
lib | wc -l
    6012

Anyway, let's say my idea was stupid/useless/not relevant/other and
close this thread.

Otherwise I have the feeling it is going to last for quite a while
without relevant results.

:)

-- 
Jérôme Renard
http://39web.fr | http://jrenard.info | http://twitter.com/jeromerenard

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Henri Bergius <be...@apache.org>]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Bertrand Dunogier <bd...@ez.no> wrote:
> I have to agree with this. Plural perfectly fits here, imho, and if "some"
> can't cope with that, it means their english ain't good enuf' and they
> should improve it :-)

I've seen people argue that even better than pluralization is using
variable names like listOfSomething, as just the 's' may be easy to
overlook.

> Bertrand Dunogier

/Henri

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Gaetano Giunta <gi...@gmail.com>]

Bertrand Dunogier wrote:
> ve to agree with this. Plural perfectly fits here, imho, and if "some"
> can't cope with that, it means their english ain't good enuf' and they
> should improve
nah.

what I want is variable names that encode type, visibility, scope and weather conditions

;-)

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Bertrand Dunogier <bd...@ez.no>]

Jerome,

On 18 March 2011 12:03, Tobias Schlitt <to...@schlitt.info> wrote:

> Hmm, I generally don't like to change my coding habbits and by now we
> usually use the plural form for stuff like $rows, $elements and friends.
> This generally indicates that you have a collection of something, which
> you can iterate over or access dedicatedly. I find it quite clear and
> intuitive.
>

I have to agree with this. Plural perfectly fits here, imho, and if "some"
can't cope with that, it means their english ain't good enuf' and they
should improve it :-)

-- 
Bertrand Dunogier
Lead Engineer Extensions
eZ systems

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Tobias Schlitt <to...@schlitt.info>]

Hi,

On 03/07/2011 07:19 PM, Jerome Renard wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 7:09 PM, Patrick ALLAERT
> <pa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2011/3/7 Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>:

>> There is nothing wrong being explicit about the content of the
>> variable, but I would refrain from using types like "Array", "List",
>> "Integer",...

> Maybe I have not been clear enough.
> 
> The point is not to name a variable acording to its type for ints,
> floats etc, etc.
> 
> The point is to provide a visual/semantic help for arrays (or
> hastables) *only* by suffixing them.
> Using a variable in its plural form might not be ideal for some
> people, this is what I am
> trying to adress with this idea, which maybe is a stupid one.
> 
> The rest (int and others) remains unchanged.

Hmm, I generally don't like to change my coding habbits and by now we
usually use the plural form for stuff like $rows, $elements and friends.
This generally indicates that you have a collection of something, which
you can iterate over or access dedicatedly. I find it quite clear and
intuitive.

In addition, I don't see a point in changing this now and creating a
mess in the code due to the resulting mixture of both namings.

Regards,
Toby

-- 
Tobias Schlitt        http://schlitt.info        GPG Key: 0xC462BC14
Want to hire me? Need quality assurance?            http://qafoo.com
eZ Components are Zeta Components now!          http://bit.ly/9S7zbn

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>]

Derick, Patrick,

On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 7:09 PM, Patrick ALLAERT
<pa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/3/7 Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>:
[...]
>
> There is nothing wrong being explicit about the content of the
> variable, but I would refrain from using types like "Array", "List",
> "Integer",...

Maybe I have not been clear enough.

The point is not to name a variable acording to its type for ints,
floats etc, etc.

The point is to provide a visual/semantic help for arrays (or
hastables) *only* by suffixing them.
Using a variable in its plural form might not be ideal for some
people, this is what I am
trying to adress with this idea, which maybe is a stupid one.

The rest (int and others) remains unchanged.

:)

-- 
Jérôme Renard
http://39web.fr | http://jrenard.info | http://twitter.com/jeromerenard

Re: [zeta-dev] Naming convention : *List variables

[Patrick ALLAERT <pa...@gmail.com>]

2011/3/7 Jerome Renard <je...@gmail.com>:
> Hi there,
>
> I would propose a small addition to the naming conventions.
>
> A list of recommended names is already provided in
> http://incubator.apache.org/zetacomponents/community/implementation.html#general-guidelines
> however there is nothing proposed for variables like arrays.
>
> As an example you can compare the two following snippets
>
> Without "List" variable:
> $rows = fetchSomeRows();
> foreach($rows as row)
>     [....]
>
> With "List' variable:
> $rowList = fetchSomeRows();
> foreach($rowList as $row)
>     [....]
>
> The rationale for such variable names is that adds a bit more
> semantics on what the variable
> is supposed to contains. It should also help to avoid typos which
> makes debugging harder.
>
> What do you think ?

Regarding your example, I generally prefer using the plural form or
"$row" being "$rows" than adding extra semantics.
Being too verbose sometimes leads to:

    $messageString = "Hello World";
    $ultimateAnwserInteger = 42;

instead of:

    $message = "Hello World";
    $ultimateAnwser = 42;

There is nothing wrong being explicit about the content of the
variable, but I would refrain from using types like "Array", "List",
"Integer",...

My 2 cents,
Patrick