[AccessD] Naming Conventions

John W. Colby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Aug 4 13:50:04 CDT 2004


Uh...  Did I forget to mention...  ;-)

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mitsules, Mark S.
(Newport News)
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 1:55 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions


You surprised me John:)  I would have bet money that your response would
have included a reference as to how it would impact a framework;)


Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: John W. Colby [mailto:jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 1:39 PM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions


Arthur,

While I pretty much agree with you I have not yet moved to the suffix
method.  Further I do have a problem with those developers who name things
without using abbreviations, such that you end up with
CustomerAddressesSortedByWhoKnowsWhatJustAsAnExampleQSel.  At least the
object type as a prefix places it at the beginning where it can be found.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 12:41 PM
To: AccessD
Subject: [AccessD] Naming Conventions


After two decades of propounding standard Hungarian notation, I am now dead
set against it, for two reasons:

A) You have to read past the prefix to find out what anything relates to.
IOW, you increase noise at the expense of signal.
B) All objects named thus sort poorly. How does it help you if every cbo is
prefixed "cbo"?

For the past year or so I have used what I call the "object-action" naming
scheme. It uses Hungarian notation but as suffix not prefix. This preserves
the sort order in a meaningful way. A couple of examples:

CustomerInsert_ap - suffix means application procedure (as opposed to system
procedure) CustomerSelectByName_fnt - user-defined function that returns a
table of customerIDs and names sorted by name (SQL 2000+ only)
CustomerFilter_cbo - combo box that filters the form by selected customer
(i.e. show only the orders placed by selected customer)

Perhaps the main reason that I have moved to this convention is the ease of
teaching it to a new hire, and letting her find her way around the database
quickly. "Look for the object of interest, followed by the action of
interest, and know what you're dealing with by the suffix."

In Access 2002+, this convention is especially profitable, because a single
"Queries" tab houses sprocs, UDFs and views. Prefixing them all with
standard Hungarian prefixes muddies the water, IMO. My convention lets you
type "C" and immediately go to all the "Customer" related stuff. Then you
can quickly deduce what's available for re-use, and what sort of object it
is.

Given the overwhelming devotion to standard Hungarian notation, I expect
this message to cause lots of flames and rebuttals. That's why we're here,
after all :)

Arthur

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