[Haskell-cafe] naming convention for maybes?

[Matthew Steele]

In my own code, I usually use a 'mb' prefix with camelCase, like so:

   case mbStr of
     Just str -> ...
     Nothing -> ...

But I agree that it doesn't always look very nice.  I'm curious what  
others do.

On Apr 22, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Evan Laforge wrote:

> Here's a simple issue that's been with me for a while.  As do many
> people, I use plural variable names for lists, so if a Block as called
> 'block' then [Block] is 'blocks'.
>
> The other pattern that comes up a lot is 'Maybe Block'.  When I have
> to name it, I call it 'maybe_block', e.g.
>
> maybe_block <- lookup something
> case maybe_block of
>  Just block -> ...
>
> However, this maybe_ prefix is rather long and unwieldy.  I have
> considered things like 'm' or 'mb' but they don't suggest Maybe to me.
> An 'm' prefix or suffix is already implying 'monad'.  If '?' were
> allowed in identifiers I could use it as a suffix.  I could just
> append 'q' and get used to it... lispers did it with 'p' after all.  I
> suppose 'mby' could be ok, but for some reason it just looks ugly to
> me.  'opt' looks ok, I suppose, but 'optional' doesn't cover the full
> range of Maybe's usage (i.e. it's strange to call a failed lookup
> result "optional").  Does anyone else have a nice convention for this?
> Hopefully something short but intuitive and nicely reading like the
> plural convention?
>
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