[Haskell-cafe] Re: Allowing hyphens in identifiers

[Richard O'Keefe]

On Dec 11, 2009, at 3:00 AM, Daniel Fischer wrote:

> Am Mittwoch 09 Dezember 2009 23:54:22 schrieb Richard O'Keefe:
>> Given the amazinglyUglyAndUnreadably baStudlyCaps namingStyle that
>> went into Haskell forNoApparentReasonThatIHaveEverHeardOf,
>
> mb_t's_bcs the ndrscr_stl is considered far uglier and less readable  
> by others

Come ON.  Argue honestly!  The problem with that text is *NOT* the
underscores but the insanely heavy abbreviation.  We all agree that
insanely heavy abbreviation is bad, but do you *really* want to
claim that
	mbT'sBcs the ndrscrStl isConsidered farUglier and lessReadable byOthers
is readable?

> (granted,
> underscore-style with nonabbreviated words is not unreadable, but  
> still extremely ugly)?

Who "grants" that underscore separation with fully written words is
"still extremely ugly"?  Not me!

I don't believe that it _is_ a matter of personal preference.
I have not been able to discover an experimental study of word
separation style effect on readability in programming.  I've been
wondering about running a small one myself, next year.  But there
is enough experimentally determined about reading in general to
be certain that visible gaps between words materially improves
readability, and internal capital letters harm it.  Now that
applies to ordinary text, but until there's evidence to show that
it doesn't apply to program sources, it's a reasonable working
assumption that it does.

If I can get approval to run an experiment, and it turns up evidence
that baStudlyCapsIsMoreReadable, then I'll change my preference.

read