[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Function and object naming conventions

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg106773] Re: Function and object naming conventions
• From: Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net>
• Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:32:19 -0500 (EST)

On 1/22/10 at 5:38 AM, lshifr at gmail.com (Leonid Shifrin) wrote:


>>I have seen one general recommendation to use all-lower-case for
>>functions, since Mathematica proprietary functions use initial caps.

>For functions, that's probably too restrictive given that
>Mathematica is a functional language and an average
>idiomatically-written Mathematica program is likely to contain many
>more functions than (global) variables. Many (myself included) find
>it convenient to use the "camel" notation, like <getAllWordsInText>.
>This can be partly motivated by the fact that this notation is used
>by Mathematica built-ins.  What matters is that the first letter is
>lower-case - this is enough to guarantee that you don't collide with
>a built-in.

What you write above is true. But I believe a more important
reason for camel case is readability of code. Contrast
alongvariablename with aLongVariableName

>For variables, it seems a common practice to use all-lower-case
>names, since there are typically not so many of them in any given
>function. I personally sometimes use camel notation also for
>variables, but I don't know how common this practice is.

My practice is similar. For short variable names that are also
local variables, I use lower case. For one line functions, the
variable name I use will most likely be a single lower case
letter. For longer names or global variables, I use camel case.