It actually looks like at least some of the research might indicate that
mixed case is harder to read than all upper case, at least when ease of
reading is measured by time taken to recognize legal words.

For example, see http://iipdm.haifa.ac.il/case_alteration.pdf.

Steven

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
Of Derek M Jones
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 9:25 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: PPIG discuss: Effect of letter casing on readability

Steven,

>Thanks for all the interesting responses. From what I have gathered, it
>appears that there is a consensus that mixed case has better legibility
>than  all upper case. However, I am still tracking down references to

I think people were expressing personal opinions, and these were
not based on published research.

The following describes a study of what might be described as
extreme alternation.

@Article{Herdman_99,
  author =       "Chris M. Herdman and Donna Chernecki and Dennis
                 Norris",
  title =        "Naming {cAsE} {aLtErNaTeD} words",
  journal =      "Memory \& Cognition",
  volume =       "27",
  number =       "2",
  pages =        "254--266",
  year =         "1999",
  online =       "paper",
}

>etc.  Rather, I'm interested in this topic from the point of view of
>writing coding guidelines for class names, method names or parameters
>that are typically abbreviated, such as XML (or Xml).

Then  you should definitely look at
www.knosof.co.uk/cbook/sent782.pdf

This cites plenty of research.  The only reliable positive factors are
derived from past experience (ie the character sequences
encountered while reading text {which most people have read in
significantly greater quantities than code}).


derek

--
Derek M Jones                                           tel: +44 (0)
1252 520 667
Knowledge Software Ltd
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Standards Conformance Testing   http://www.knosof.co.uk


 
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