Jonathan King writes:
> So, the name of a type is always at least a full word, as are the names of
> specific functions. But type variables are almost always single
> characters, and distinct from the names of any type. Conventionally, they
> are also usually "a", "b", and "c", although "m" is for monad.
> Conventionally also, generic function arguments are "f" and "g", the
> conventional predicate is "p". Generic arguments are "x" and "y" (or "xs"
> and "ys" if they are lists); arguments with specified types are usually
> the first letter of their type name (e.g., "c" for Char, "i" for an Int;
> "n" and "m" are indices)... that covers most of it, I think.
>
> I think most of the Haskell code I've ever seen that *wasn't* written by
> me follow these conventions pretty closely. But the strange thing is...I
> haven't found a prominent place on, e.g., the Haskell home page where this
> is spelled out. (Please tell me if I'm missing anything obvious.) In a
> way, I guess this is trivial, but I know from hard experience it can often
> take a long time to become completely aware of trivial things.
I think this kind of thing is valuable... Hungarian notation [1] serves the same
purpose in Windows C / C++ programming. It *is* valuable having canonical variable
names for most situations; it reduces the intellectual load on the (human) reader of
the code... you don't have to check back to the type signature and argument list to
figure out what a particular variable denotes; it's just obvious from the name.
--KW 8-)
[1] @Article{
Simonyi*91:Hungarian,
author="Charles Simonyi and Martin Heller",
title="The {H}ungarian Revolution",
journal="{BYTE}",
year="1991",
volume="16",
number="8",
pages="{131--138}",
month=aug,
abstract="For all the attention given to names in the literature and
magic (for to name a thing is to control it), names in programming
languages have received curiously little attention. Although
today's computer programming languages force a rigid syntax on
the programmer, they permit the use of more or less arbitrary
names for variables, functions, and macros. A reasonable standard
for variable naming helps the development and maintenance of
software.",
}
--
: Keith Wansbrough, MSc, BSc(Hons) (Auckland) ------------------------:
: PhD Student, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, England. :
: (and recently of the University of Glasgow, Scotland. [><] ) :
: Native of Antipodean Auckland, New Zealand: 174d47' E, 36d55' S. :
: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/kw217/ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :
:---------------------------------------------------------------------:
