> Kerry wrote: >>>consistency needs to be the main focus >> >> yeah, but doesnt using plurals mean you cant be >> consistent? >> >> as per s.isaacs post: >> >> user(s) >> address(es)
> Ack! Strawman argument! You're picking on a "weakness" of > English rather > actually arguing about whether pluralisation is a good > thing or not. > Say I'm a Spaniard or Hispanophone. Plurals in Spanish > always end in > -es. Is using plurals for tables names more consistant in > Spanish than > English? Of course not. Assuming that statement is true, yes it does. I was talking about syntactical consistency, in which, if I have a rule that all names are appended with x, then that is a consistent syntactical rule. If I then amend my rule to say that "all names are appended with x -- except for names we don't feel like appending with x" (which is how the rules for plurals in English work) then the syntax rule is inconsistent. There is no way of automating the rule -- it requires manual entry of a "dictionary" to explain what names are random exceptions to the rule -- and that's really the whole point -- plurals in english are arbitrarily random. A consistently applied syntax rule may be abritrary but is not random. > Or let's take Gaelic: nouns in Gaelic come in various > declensions, and > the plural of a word varies depending on its declension > (and various > complex phonological considerations: oh wait! that's why > English has two plural endings!). What english do you speak? I can think of several... s, es, i, a -- and that's not even including the cases in which the plural of a word has almost nothing to do with the word in question (person/people, goose/geese, mouse/mice). > It could be -anna, -�, -e, -a, the noun > could undergo > palatalisation of the final consonant, &c. Does this make > using > pluralisation more consistant in English than Gaelic? > Nope. Yep. > But when it comes down to it, this is all convention. I > pluralise > because bits of SQL like "SELECT ... FROM products ...", > "INSERT INTO > products ...", "UPDATE products ...", and "DELETE FROM > products ..." > read better than me because these work on sets of entities > as opposed > to singular entities. When it comes down to it, how it > "sounds" is > really the only way of justifying it. It's not the only reason, but it's the reason most commonly understood. (Re: previous post regarding automation of table names). Really if you want to run the length of the argument then you could just as easily name your classes plural as well, and technically a class does describe a collection of objects (their type), though when we write code we don't generally think of a class that way, we think of it as being singular even though we then instantiate objects to create what are actually singular entities of type. s. isaac dealey 954.522.6080 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://macromedia.breezecentral.com/p49777853/ http://www.sys-con.com/author/?id=4806 http://www.fusiontap.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:200756 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
