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

(setq reply-to
  (concatenate 'string "Paul Foley " "<mycroft" '(#\@) "actrix.gen.nz>"))



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