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Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2017 09:17:31 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Class Naming in Core
From: TonyMarston@hotmail.com ("Tony Marston")

"Rowan Collins"  wrote in message 
news:3351770B-C53E-4062-A91A-D3AA7439F02B@gmail.com...
>
>On 5 June 2017 09:14:47 BST, Tony Marston <TonyMarston@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Seriously, can you explain in words of one syllable the precise
>>benefits of
>>such a consistency?
>
>I will try:
>
>- When we write code, we need to know how to spell the names of things. If 
>the things all have names that look the same, it is less hard for us to 
>guess what the name is. This means we take less time to learn the names, 
>and get less things wrong.

Words and abbreviations are spelled the same whether you use snake_case or 
CamelCase, the only difference is how you show the boundary between one word 
and the next. Studies have shown that snake_case is more readable than 
CamelCase.

>- Our brains are made to spot when things are the same, and when things are 
>not the same. When one thing is not like the things near it, we think "why 
>is that?" This slows us down.

Seeing a name written in snake_case does not slow you down. In normal 
writing there is a space between each word, but as names in software cannot 
have embedded spaces. This is why underscores are used, and this is 
infinitely more readable than replacing spaces with a capital letter.

>- When we get things wrong, we need to find out what we did wrong. If one 
>way to write a name is wrong, we can spot when we wrote it that way, and 
>know that it is wrong.

Writing a name wrong has nothing to do with the difference between 
snake_case and CamelCase. My IDE will show me existing names that match what 
I am typing as soon as I start typing, so I can easily pick the name that I 
want.

>- If we make two things that mean the same thing, but do not look the same, 
>we might not spot that we wrote a third thing that does not mean the same 
>thing.

If you try to instantiate a class that does not exist, or call a 
method/function which does not exist, then you will soon know about it. 
Using snake_case instead of CamelCase does not invite more errors.

>I think there are more things that make it good to have names that look the 
>same, but I hope this helps for now.

The only universally accepted "rule" for names is that they be unique and 
convey proper meaning. In proper languages all names are case-insensitive as 
the ability to write the same name with the exact same spelling but 
different case is simply inviting disaster.

-- 
Tony Marston