Question mark in variable and function names
Paul Foley
see at below.invalid
Thu Oct 7 04:44:38 EDT 2004
On Wed, 6 Oct 2004 21:11:41 -0800, Eric Pederson wrote:
> Andr? N?ss wrote:
>>
>> One thing I liked about Lisp was the ability to use the question mark
>> (and the exclamation mark) in function names. I found this
>> particularily useful when checking boolean properties of a object like
>> for example myObj.isContextSet. It just feels so much more natural to
>> write myObj.contextSet?
>>
>> I also found it neat that destructive operations were clearly marked
>> with !.
> I guess any programmer who likes LISP has an extra gear in their gear box (perhaps), but I think non-alphanumeric symbols in names reduce the readability. We live in a world of text where words have letters in them, and punctuation means something different. When I see punctuation my brain goes "STOP. ABSORB SOME LOGIC BEFORE PROCEEDING."
Yes, so do I. I /hate/ that convention (of *SCHEME*, not Lisp, note!)
[Not to mention that it's not pronounceable]
--
Malum est consilium quod mutari non potest -- Publilius Syrus
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