Protocol names convention

I’m not the biggest fan of method categories/protocols but I try to.
What strikes me is the huge mess in names we have. Everytime I create e.g. an initialize method I’m asking myself which is the proper name to choose

initialize
initializing
initialization
….

Do we have a convention for this?

Right now all names starting with init are

initialization-data
initialize-destroy
initialization-filter
initialize - release
initialize
initialization-union
initialize - event
initializing
initialization
initalize-release
initailize-release
initialization widgets
initalize
initialize-release
initialization-release

Norbert

Hi Norbert,


Funny.  Your list (of course) omits one of the best:
  instance initialization

In the original Smalltalk-80 the one used was
  initialize-release
because the system, having a reference counting garbage collector, needed explicit cycle breaking for garbage to be reclaimed and so there were some important release methods in the compiler and the GUI.  But these became obsolete when scavenging was introduced, and so in the parcplace code instance initialization started replacing initialize-release.

I think protocol names should use the passive voice since the active voice suggests specific usage.  So initialization is better than initialize et al.

And it would be nice to have tool support to suggest protocol names to maintain consistency so that the same selector usually appears in the same protocol. Spelling rorres are intivetible and should be fixed when found.

> Norbert
>

Hi Eliot,

On 13 January 2018 at 12:59, Eliot Miranda <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> And it would be nice to have tool support to suggest protocol names to maintain consistency so that the same selector usually appears in the same protocol. Spelling rorres are intivetible and should be fixed when found.

This is partly already available.  If you select the '-- all --'
category, enter and save a method, the browser will guess which
protocol to put the method in.  If the method is implemented by a
superclass it will be put in the same protocol, so #initialize will be
put in to 'initialization' (where it is in ProtoObject).

Cheers,
Alistair

Sounds great! In which class is the code that does the decision about the right name? I think I find my convention here.+

Norbert

Le 13/01/2018 à 13:46, Norbert Hartl a écrit :
>
> Sounds great! In which class is the code that does the decision about the right name? I think I find my convention here.+
>

There is MethodClassifier with pragma, prefix and suffix map class side.

> Norbert
>


--
Cyril Ferlicot
https://ferlicot.fr

http://www.synectique.eu
2 rue Jacques Prévert 01,
59650 Villeneuve d'ascq France

Norbert I developed a tool to analysis the use of protocol and fix them.
It can show you the distribution and the problems.

You can load it: AutomaticMethodCategorizer.

Now I call my protocol initialization
because initialize-release is dated :)

Stef

On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 12:32 PM, Norbert Hartl <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bingo :)
I fixed the automatic categoriser and refrain myself from fixing all
the deprecancies.

Stef

On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 1:37 PM, Alistair Grant <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 13 January 2018 at 13:50, Cyril Ferlicot D. <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Le 13/01/2018 à 13:46, Norbert Hartl a écrit :
>>
>> Sounds great! In which class is the code that does the decision about the right name? I think I find my convention here.+
>>
>
> There is MethodClassifier with pragma, prefix and suffix map class side.

Which is called by NautilusUI>>compileAMethodFromCategory:withSource:notifying:

Cheers,
Alistair

Yes and In automaticMethodCategorizer (an old project that I improved
for nothing) I did a protocol analyser to help taking some decision
on protocol names.

Stef


On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 2:53 PM, Alistair Grant <[hidden email]> wrote: