Question: naming conventions

[nikomatsakis]

I am debating whether to use Rust-like snake_case naming or Java/JS like camelCase.

On the merits, I think I would adopt camelCase:

• camel-case is more common
• over time, I've come to appreciate that foo.someField.someOtherField.share is easier to visually separate than foo.some_field.some_other_field.share (the . and _ kind of run together for me)
  • there's some minimal research into this which found _ vs . to be "roughly equivalent" in terms of people's ability to parse, but camel-case had a slight edge. I imagine it may be because of this phenomena.

But, I want Dada and Rust to be good buddies, and I am reluctant to introduce an impedance mismatch.

Thoughts?

[nikomatsakis]

Heh, I am realizing that I associate foo_bar with being kind of edgy and independent, and fooBar camel-case with being all conventional and stodgy. This...is probably just me and not a good basis for making a decision.

[xffxff]

Personally, I prefer snake_case a bit, which separates multiple words more intuitively. And for camelCase, I may need to add a step in my mind which words it is made of. This may be because my native language is not English and I am not that sensitive to it.

[brson]

I no longer remember why we chose a mix of camel caps and snake case in rust, just that it took some precedent from python. I think the outside world has often thought rust's convention is weird.

It doesn't matter a lot to me, but I do find myself getting conventions wrong in other languages because I habitually use rust conventions.

I think dada will initially attract curiosity from rust developers. It's a great opportunity to make different choices than rust where it matters. I think it probably doesn't matter here and will cause frustration and confusion (like it does when I switch between js and rust).

[brson]

I do want to emphasize though that I do not have a strong opinion.

[nikomatsakis]

I think you're right that we have to choose carefully where we choose to stray from convention, both in comparison to Rust and in comparison to other languages.

I don't exactly recall how we chose snake_case, but I think we did borrow it from Python and because _ are often used by C developers (though conventions there vary quite a bit).

I think I'm persuaded that we should stick with Rust capitalization conventions, even if I've come to vaguely prefer fooBar because of the . issue.

I am now toying with the idea of a dada format that rewrites your naming conventions. A bridge too far, probably. =)