More on IDL

Pedro Szekely ([email protected])
Wed, 14 Dec 1994 16:23:53 PST

Now that everyone is busy writing IDL, we should come up with conventions for
nameing things. Some of the issues are:

- Capitalization: what things should be capitalized.

- Underscores: should we write names such as AddPart, add_part, Add_Part,
addPart?

- conventions for attributes and methods names: should we use get... add...
remove... destroy...., what are the standard prefixes.

- how should we name methods that test things: eg: a method that tests whether
an object is primitive should be called, is_primitive, primitive, or what?

- Should we use collection classes instead of sequence? I am afraid that the
sequence stuff is going to generate ugly code that will be hard to fit into
Amulet.

Let us try to come up with a convention quickly so that we don't have to
change our specs later on. Here are some ways to select a convention:
- select a convention used in another system we regard as well written. For
example Fresco's convention (Capitalized types, eg SomeType; lowercase
methods, eg do_something; lowercase variables).
- use Amulet's convention, given that we will use Amulet.
- invent our own.

I vote for using Amulet's convention even though I think the Fresco convention
is prettier.

Pedro Szekely
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: 310/822-1511, Fax: 310/823-6714
URL: http://www.isi.edu/isd/HUMANOID-HOME.html