Scott Marcus
marcus at tsstech.com
Thu Aug 12 12:14:11 CDT 2004
<<...should be reconsidered sometimes. Maybe you should reconsider. Again you imply that we are wrong. We are only pointing out what is considered a better way. -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of DWUTKA at marlow.com Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:48 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions True, and a lot of the 'old time' scientistics, people that were in the field for years, thought the world was flat. Hmmm, should we keep bringing up these kind of comparisons? Kodak balked at the idea of 'photo copies', because it didn't come close to their current photography standards.....guess Xerox is living proof that 'our way, or the highway' should be reconsidered sometimes. Drew -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Colby, John Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 11:26 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions >either way makes sense to me. And eating people made sense to Jeffry Dahmer. The rest of society didn't seem to agree. <grin> JWC -----Original Message----- From: DWUTKA at marlow.com [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com] Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:01 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions Ah, but how does this: Dim objInventoryItem As InventoryItem make less mistakes then Dim ii As InventoryItem ??? The 'argument' was that it makes it harder to read for a maintenance programmer. I really don't see that, because if I'm the maintenance programmer, either way makes sense to me. But I certainly don't see how either method allows for less mistakes then the other, with the exception of scripting, like with ASP. In ASP, you are far more likely to misspell a longer name, then a shorter name. Drew -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Scott Marcus Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 10:37 AM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions Drew, I've been waiting for you to say "bad practice". No one said you have a bad practice(even though I think it is and now I have said it). We said it isn't "Best Practice". You know, I could look both ways before crossing the street (considered best practice) or I could squirrel method it(just dart across without looking). Either way, I get across the street. Now, not looking both ways may be the quickest way across the road. If I get clipped by a car, it may or may not be fatal. I can even get clipped by the car if I look both ways by using poor judgment. I see a whole lot less dead people on the road than squirrels. My point is this... We all make programming mistakes even when using best practices. These mistakes can be fatal (to your career or even someone's life) or not. Why not choose a method that has been proven to help reduce these mistakes? That is what naming conventions are all about. BTW, I would never have a variable like strSomeVeryLongDrawOutOverlyComplexName. That defeats the purpose of the naming convention. Instead of trying to punch holes in a naming convention, try using a naming convention to see its benefits. Scott Marcus -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of DWUTKA at marlow.com Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 10:10 AM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions Ah, well, now you have a different argument to defend. How could FirstName be a class, if you have this: FirstName="Hello" ???? The way a variable is used, will determine what kind of variable you are dealing with. If you see: Set FirstName= ..... It's not a string variable, is it? On top of that, if it's a property, which could act like a string, then you would see the Object.Property...unless of course you use a With statement somewhere. Does that mean that using a With Statement is bad practice? Because how is a maintenance coder supposed to know what object is being used as a parent, without having to go all the way up to the top to find the With statement? Drew -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Charlotte Foust Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 5:05 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions >> Isn't FirstName going to be a string. No, it could be a class, a property, or something else entirely, Drew. That's the point, and it's the problem I have with the "recommended" naming for .Net, where the assumption seems to be that everything is itself so it doesn't need any additional labelling. Charlotte Foust -----Original Message----- From: DWUTKA at marlow.com [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 1:14 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions <JC QUOTE>I know that when I'm dealing with money it's gonna be currency, when I'm dealing with a text well... Uhh... It's gonna be a string.</JC QUOTE> So why in the world, would you need strFirstName? Isn't FirstName going to be a string. Except of course, with your new naming convention, we would all be binary representations. Surrogate keys for our natural DNA keys. LOL! By this same logic, if you see For i=1 to 1000, can't you listen to what you just said, and realize it's a NUMBER, and even perhaps guess that it's an integer....more then likely a long integer? What kills me on this whole thread, is that if you saw these two peices of code: Dim i As Long For i=1 to 100 Debug.Print i Next i -- AND -- Dim strLetsCountToOneHundred As String Do Until strLetsCountToOneHundred="100" strLetsCountToOneHundred="" & Val(strLetsCountToOneHundred) Debug.Print strLetsCountToOneHundred Loop You would approve of the second one, because it stuck to your naming convention, regardless of the fact that it is totally moronic to perform the task that way. You would disregard the first one, because even though it does exactly what it needs to, is understandable to more then half of the coders in the world, took a tenth of the time to type out........it doesn't use Hungarian convention...so it is bad in your book. Phooey, go with the inefficient garbage....at least it uses Hungarian By the way, good luck with your book. No, I'm not going to buy a copy....don't buy any books on programming..... Drew -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of John W. Colby Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 12:27 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions >My point is that you seem to recommend everyone using the same standard >and quotes MS as someone to take lead from when it comes to coding. They've *changed* their standard which pretty stuffs up your argument. Nope, I said if you went to a large company espousing using I or II as variable names you would generally be shown the door. >And strongly typing IS a primary issue in naming conventions. Precisely right, one very good reason for using a convention such as the Hungarian is that it tells you the data type of the variable. It certainly is NOT a reason for abandoning such a convention. >Here's 4 valid points of which intellisense is only one. http://www.fmsinc.com/dotnet/analyzer/Rules/Hungarian.htm Let's look at them: >- .NET code is strongly typed, removing the need to identify variable >type by its name. Excuse me? What does strongly typed (must be identified as a specific data type at dim time and can only be assigned that type) have to do with readability? Readability is what naming conventions are about. When I am down buried in code and I come on i, I need to know that I cannot assign a string to it because it is a currency variable. The fact that it is strongly typed is exactly an argument for telling me what the variable is (naming convention?)!!! >- .NET has a rich new type system. Coming up with prefixes for all of >the new types would tedious and hard to keep track of. That is undeniable. Just LEARNING all the types is tedious and hard to keep track of! With 2500 (or is it 3500) classes, you certainly can't come up with a prefix for each. However, a string is still a string and an integer is an integer. It would still be useful to know that when I try to assign something to that integer I want to make sure that it is an integer. >- In Visual Studio .NET, you simply have to hover over a variable to >get its type. This removes the need to identify a variable's type by its name. Bull! I read code by the acre every day. To have to move my mouse over everything in sight is simply ludicrous. >- Eliminating Hungarian Notation makes code easier to manage, >especially when you decide that you need to change a variable's type (for example, if you decide to use a double instead of a long). Bull! Or I guess what I really mean is "of course it does". On the other hand just using i for every variable also makes things easier. You'd never need to rename anything because everything would already be named i. Or II if you were Drew ;-) I have used a Hungarian convention for a long time (not that it is the end all and be all of conventions but at least it qualifies as one!) and a simple find and replace works wonders for such renaming tasks. Furthermore I end up changing the data type of variables oh... Hm... Once in a blue moon. I know that when I'm dealing with money it's gonna be currency, when I'm dealing with a text well... Uhh... It's gonna be a string. Once in a blue moon I misjudge on the byte/integer/long stuff. Once in a great while I change a text box to a combo or vv. Yep, I have to find and replace. That is just a silly argument. So what we come up with is a SINGLE somewhat maybe kinda sorta valid reason (for .NET specifically). However I'm on a roll here. The COLBY convention, everything is named i. Simple, easy to remember the convention, saves bajillions of keystrokes, easy to document your convention, never have to strain your brain to think up new names for things... Yea, that's the ticket. Hmm... Wait. Let's really develop this. All variables are named beginning with a, the next one b and so forth. Very rare to use more than 26 variables in one place, but if your do... Uh... Ok... Let me think... This is a tough one... Yea!!! Let's just go with aa, ab, ac... COOL!!! I mean think about it, we could have 26*26 variables before we even had to go to three characters. Perhaps I could write a book on it. One page, in fact, one paragraph, explaining the convention. $69.99 / copy. No printing costs. Yea... Brilliant! You did say as long as *A* standard is used and it is documented... Drew, ya want to buy a copy? And don't EVEN tell me that its YOUR convention, cause I'm betting you didn't think of the ab thing! <Huge grin> OMG I'm gonna be a millionaire. OMG2. I just realized I could write a really cool language using this same concept. Instead of For Next it would just be a b. THINK ABOUT IT! Bill Gates, move over! While this has been entertaining, I think I've made the points I wanted to make. And yes, I can hear the huge sigh of relief coming from my email client. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Haslett, Andrew Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 12:13 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: RE: [AccessD] Naming Conventions Dunno what this II stuff you're going on about has to do with it - MS never recommend that and nor would I. My point is that you seem to recommend everyone using the same standard and quotes MS as someone to take lead from when it comes to coding. They've *changed* their standard which pretty stuffs up your argument. And strongly typing IS a primary issue in naming conventions. Intellisens is an added bonus. Here's 4 valid points of which intellisense is only one. http://www.fmsinc.com/dotnet/analyzer/Rules/Hungarian.htm Its pretty clear that the generally accepted 'standards' are changing for many reasons. If people choose not to change with them - that's their choice. Many people refuse to accept others point of view and will probably continue using outdated methods - just as they do coding languages. And if they're happy with it then good on them, they may well do the job for years to come and are the right tool for many situations.. I'll say again, as long as *A* standard IS USED - and its clearly documented and followed - then the rest of this argument is pointless. Think of all the beautifully structured, commented and named code you could have written instead of contributing to this thread ;=) -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com