Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

陈奕迅 — Thu, 22 Jul 2004 15:34:00 GMT

why?

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Ming Chen(VSData) — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 18:29:00 GMT

I think I am becomming a lazy person since I get hooked on the intellisense. I typically rely intellisense pop up the class method to look for the method and parameters instead of look it up from the menu/help (I really hate MSDN unless I have to). Hey I am not the only one---
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.htmlIf

From that perspective, well, I learn my lesson of put the *long & descriptive* name in the type defination, xml comment on the beginning every public function that will benefit other teammate whoever to use it and vise versa.

That is, if I have to choose to purchase a external templateize colletion from two companies one implement Dictionary<Key,Value>, the other implements Dictionary<K, V>, I will pick Dictionary<Key,Value> anyday.

Yes, i am VS intelliense addict & I don't *want to* read manual unless absolute necessary.

-Ming

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Keith Patrick — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 06:22:00 GMT

Key/Value (or whatever the class is supposed to be). It's like getting rid of Hungarian notation: let the IDE tell you what something is to the compiler/runtime, not the name, so why use abbreviations to denote a template/generic? Also, the concept doesn't really extend out beyond traditional templates. Sure, there's K/V, and it's well understood, but what woudl the standard be (and for that matter, the litmus) for when something is well-known enough to abbreviate?

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Cyrus Najmabadi — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:24:00 GMT

I've flipped my position on this after a conversation with SteveJS. I'll post something on it later :-)

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Klaus — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 19:20:00 GMT

Spell the type parameters out, please. So my vote is for the Dictionary<KeyType, ValueType>. I would read the use of <> and from that know that it should not be used as Dictionary<2,26>.

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

damien morton — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 20:23:00 GMT

Philip - your example has me recoiling - youre right - its ugly and distracting.

How about this then:

@Value Process(@Other key)
{
@Other newKey = key.Next();
foreach (@Value value in values[key])
{
value = key.Get<@Value>
}
...

Perhaps this distinguishes type paramaters, without beeing to visually jarring. (shades of perl, but... type paramaters are special and you dont want to go an confuse them with actual types).

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Philip Rieck — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 19:26:00 GMT

Damien - the only problem with VALUE is that many other languages (C# included, to some extent), use the all caps pattern to signify a constant, #define, or macro -- In fact, it's normally reserved for a value fixed at compile time.

Also, I personally would be distracted by code such as this (completely nonsensical:)
VALUE Process(OTHER key)
{
OTHER newKey = key.Next();
foreach(VALUE value in values[key])
{
value = key.Get<VALUE>
...

-- you can see that the all-caps type specifiers can be littered in there quite a bit, and would distract a reader. The reader would be much more likely to care what the code does than to have the placement of type specifiers scream out at them

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

damien morton — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 18:12:00 GMT

Cyrus sais:
public interface IDictionary<KeyType,ValueType>
{
ValueType GetAt(KeyType key);
}

Why is KeyType necessary? We know it's a "key" because the name of the variable is "key".

Damien sais:

Ahh - but what about ValueType in that expression - we dont know what that is, until we look at the name of the generic type param.

how about this pattern:

public interface IDictionary<KEY,VALUE>
{
VALUE GetAt(KEY key);
}

I know evyerone will recoil at the use of all-caps, but its shorter and clearer than pre-pending a letter or appending the word "Type". Its a currently unused pattern, and its compatable with single-upper-case-letters for simple type params.

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Cyrus Najmabadi — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:51:00 GMT

I'm looking forward to prepending classes with C, delegates with D, and enums with E. There's a certain beauty in the succession of those letts, C/D/E. Now we just need to something to start with F...

re: Naming generic type parameters: Dictionary or Dictionary

Cyrus Najmabadi — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:50:00 GMT

Julien: Dont' get me started on how much I hate that about interfaces :-)