Re: [boost] lhs/rhs ([Review] Type Traits Extension ending tomorrow)

Subject: Re: [boost] lhs/rhs ([Review] Type Traits Extension ending tomorrow)
From: Julian Gonggrijp (j.gonggrijp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-22 12:23:03

Joshua Juran wrote:

> On Mar 22, 2011, at 7:15 AM, Max Sobolev wrote:
> 
>> (...)
> 
> I don't see why asm needs shorter identifiers.  On the contrary,
> assembly instructions tend to be very brief, in contrast to C++
> statements whose readability sometimes improves with shorter
> identifier names.

+1

>> Type operator + (Type const& left_hand_side,
>>                Type const& right_hand_side) { . . . }
> 
> No, this is worse than 'lhs' and 'rhs'.  The two abbreviations are
> easily recognized for what they are (even if distinguishing one from
> the other takes some thought) but the spelled-out terms one must read
> and interpret, only to realize they mean nothing (other than to state
> what position they appear in).  For the same reason, I always write
> loop indices as 'i', not 'index', and especially not 'widget_index' --
> any information provided only serves to distract.

+1

>> left/right are too simple :( but not horrible names. Articulation of
>> /lhs/ and /rhs/ is much longer then /left/ and /right/ words, because
>> former consists of 3 syllables (l - h - s), and later consists of 1
>> only.
> 
> I use 'a' and 'b'.  They're each one character and one syllable, and
> it's obvious without thinking which order they go in.  And they don't
> look like they might mean something more than they actually do.
> 
> inline bool operator<=( const Foo& a, const Foo& b )
> {
>    return !(b < a);
> }

-1 ;-)

I think the words "left" and "right" are short enough in this case,
and they do mean something because operators like <= treat their
operands asymmetrically. You distinguish these words for the same
reason that you distinguish "first" and "last" in the parameter list
of a function that works on sequences.

This discussion has drifted quite far, hasn't it?

-Julian