I just noticed this variable named "TEXT/HTML-MIME-TYPE" in the
excellent Web server API, and wanted to request that PLT not get in the
habit of using all-caps.
As far as I know, the reason Java kids use all-caps for constants is an
artifact of 1970s C, and no longer makes sense. C had no "const" at the
time, and compilers and computers were very limited, but they did have
the C preprocessor. So people used preprocessor macros for constants.
The C preprocessor was very crude and ill-conceived by Scheme syntax
extension standards. It was easy to break your code because you
unknowingly used a preprocessor macro that, say, expanded to function
call with side effects despite looking like a variable reference, or
reassigned your variables, or expanded to more than one expression, or
even expanded to an incomplete expression or statement. Because
preprocessor macro names were identifiers just like variable and
function names, a naming convention of putting macro names in all-caps
helped to flag this bit of code that did not behave as a variable or
function. Then, when Java was being developed, the professional
programmers for whom it was originally targeted were at the time C and
C++ programmers, so Java was made to look a lot like C++. (Ironically,
it was the analogue of COBOL and 4GL programmers who became most of the
Java programmers, not the embedded systems, technical, and shrinkwrap
developers who wanted the language to look like C/C++.) Some Java
person must've thought that using all-caps for constants was a good
idea, because, hey, that's how it's done in C++, so they started doing
that in Java, even though Java did not have the dangerous preprocessor
and it did get "const". So now you see Java programmers writing
"someFooBar =
OMG_LOOK_OUT_HERE_COMES_A_CONSTANT_IT_COULD_BE_ANYTHING_BUT_OH_WAIT_ITS_JUST_A_CONSTANT_WHICH_IS_ONE_OF_THE_MOST_BENIGN_THINGS_POSSIBLE_NOT_A_CPP_MACRO_SO_I_GUESS_WE_SHOULD_CALM_DOWN_AND_STOP_SHOUTING;"
--
http://www.neilvandyke.org/
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