Hi,
On Wed, 26 Sep 2012, Lawrence Crowl wrote:
> > A lower-case type name indicates to me a non-changing type,
> > i.e. nothing that depends on a template. In C we only had
> > such types so we used lower-case names everywhere. With C++
> > and templates I think we should start using upper case for some
> > very specific use cases, like first letter of dependend types.
>
> How would you distinguish them from template parameter names,
> which by convention have an upper case first letter?
I wouldn't. If the distinction becomes so important that authors need to
see the speciality immediately by having a different convention how to
spell names, then I think we did something wrong, and we should simplify
the code.
> What about non-type dependent names?
I'm not sure what you're asking. Let's make an example:
template <typename T>
struct D : B<T>
{
typedef typename B<T>::E E; // element_type
E getme (int index);
}
In fact, as B<T>::E would probably be defined like "typedef typename T E",
I would even have no issue to call the above E also T. The distinction
between the template arg name and the typedef would be blurred, and I say,
so what; one is a typedef of the other and hence mostly equivalent for
practical purposes. (And if they aren't, then again, we did something too
complicated with the switch to C++).
> The advantage to following them is that they will surprise no one.
They will surprise everyone used to different conventions, for instance
Qt, so that's not a reason.
> Do you have an alternate suggestion, one that does not confuse template
> parameters and dependent names?
Upper last character? Just kidding :) Too many detailed rules for
conventions are the death of them, use rules of thumbs, my one would be
"somehow depends on template args -> has upper character in name", where
"somehow depends on" includes "is a".
Ciao,
Michael.
