Re: [boost] Re: Review: Boost Coding Guidelines

From: Iain.Hanson_at_[hidden]
Date: 2001-07-17 13:59:55

     Hi,
     
     I think that there is a lot of very useful common ( and not so common 
     ) sense in the guidelines. And, some essential mandatory items.
     
     However, having said that, in their current form they are *for me* 
     over prescriptive in the style of many corpoate coding standards. As 
     such, I am not surprised at the negative reaction and have some 
     sympathy with it.
     
     I would prefer to see them split into two sections rather than two 
     documents. The first section would be mandatory and would cover things 
     like naming for Interface, and 2.14. Names containing double 
     underscores ...
     
     The second section could be described as 'guidance' or 'good practice' 
     but would have over prescriptive elements re-worded to be less 
     prescriptive.
     i.e.:
     
     2.10. Data members should have a ``m_'' prefix, to distinguish them 
     from an otherwise-identical member function name and to clarify their
     provenance in code which uses them. Non-member names must not have an 
     ``m_'' prefix. 
     
     should be changed to something like:
     
     2.10. Data Member Names. It is a common practice in C++ to have a 
     naming scheme for data member variables. This helps to distinguish 
     them from otherwise identical member function parameter names. Two 
     common practicies are to prefix the name with 'm_' or to suffix the 
     name with an '_'. The naming scheme chosen is almost certainly less 
     inportant than that it be used consistenly. If you chose something 
     other than a common naming scheme, it would be useful if this was 
     noted in the documentation of the library.
     
     Formating
     
     These are generally religous and should *I believe* be dropped. 
     Personally, I hate K & R style braces as they can be difficult to keep 
     track of when nested and when code gets complex. But, I also know that 
     I have as much chance of getting those who favour them, to give them 
     up, as I have of getting a pig to fly ( under its own steam ).
     
     If people submit a library that is unreadable or so difficiult to 
     follow due to inconsistent use of formating then it will get little 
     attention and if proposed for review, it can be rejected.
     
     Besides, at least emacs users can always see code in their own 
     prefered style :-).
     
     /ikh

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