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History around Pascal Casing and Camel Casing

In the initial design of the Framework we had hundreds of hours of debate about naming style.  To facilitate these debates we coined a number of terms.  With Anders Heilsberg (the original designer of Turbo Pascal) a key member of the design team, it is no wonder that we chose the term Pascal Casing for the casing style popularized by the Pascal programming language.  We were somewhat cute in using the term camelCasing for the casing style that looks something like the hump on a camel.  We used the term SCREAMING CAPS to indicate an all upper case style. Luckily this style (and name) did not survive in the final guideline.

 

Pascal Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word (including acronyms over two letters in length) as in the following examples.

PropertyDescriptor

HtmlTag

Camel Casing convention capitalizes the first character of each word except the first word, as in the following examples.

propertyDescriptor

ioStream

htmlTag

Published 03 February 04 08:22 by BradA

Comments

# Phil Scott said on February 3, 2004 8:44 PM:
What about the Finger_Breaking_Underscore style?
# Brad Abrams said on February 3, 2004 8:47 PM:
Oh yea, We_Should_Add_That_One...
# Johnny Hall said on February 4, 2004 2:03 AM:
And don't forget the SCREAMING_AS_YOUR_FINGERS_BREAK style, which used to be used for constants. :)
# Alex Odintsov said on February 4, 2004 6:56 AM:
Is it confidential information the naming convention that you guy came up with? Can it be viewed somewhere?
# Brad Abrams said on February 4, 2004 9:18 AM:
Nope -- the guidelines are public, check out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/cpconnetframeworkdesignguidelines.asp
# Louis Parks said on February 4, 2004 9:37 AM:
Why Pascal? It would have made more sense to call them title caps (like nearly every word processor does).
# Brad Abrams said on February 4, 2004 10:27 AM:
Well, Pascal popularized the casing style, but I am open to changing it if folks think "title caps" is clearer.
# Jivastich Blog said on February 4, 2004 4:53 PM:
# Johnny Hall said on February 4, 2004 3:00 PM:
Leave it as Pascal case. Everyone knows it now. I don't see the need to change.
# Frank Hileman said on February 5, 2004 6:21 AM:
And the random casing "standard" used for acronyms? What will be the name for that style? "FeelsGOoD" casing?
# Brad Abrams said on February 5, 2004 6:37 AM:
Frank, I take you you don't like the rule where one and two letter acronyms are upper and three or more letters are Pascal?
# Frank Hileman said on February 6, 2004 7:10 AM:
Brad, from what I have seen, with acronyms, anything goes. I assumed there is no rule. Even if API designers use your rule, how will users remember the rule when typing full bore? Not everyone uses intellisense all the time.
# Ken Brubaker said on February 20, 2004 10:46 AM:
For my own reference, I thought I'd compile a quick list of design guidelines added by Brad Abrams, et al.
# AML said on February 29, 2004 7:43 AM:
I'm sad that you did not appear to consider the newly popular hAx0rC4$1nG
# John Bennett said on March 4, 2004 8:57 AM:
What is the verdict on ID/Id?

Is it a two-letter acronym, hence ID?
(e.g., System.Web.UI.Control.ID and other classes in System.Web)

Or is it a word all on its own (let's not get into Freud...), hence Id?
(e.g., System.Messaging.Message.Id and other classes in System.Messaging and System.Security.Cryptography)

# Brad Abrams History around Pascal Casing and Camel Casing | Hair Growth Products said on June 9, 2009 10:38 PM:

PingBack from http://hairgrowthproducts.info/story.php?id=2692

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