Joel de Guzman wrote:
Mateusz Loskot wrote:
Hi,
Inspired by Jean-Louis question about what to put to namespace detail, I would be interested learning about rationale of name of the namespace detail (sometimes details or impl too).
Recently, I've participated in a very interesting discussion, on ACCU members mailing list, about prefixes and suffixes like Base or _base nad Impl or _impl, as misused, irrelevant and confusing, meaningless, etc. For example, how to properly name elements of PIMPL idiom and similar.
During the discussion I suggested that 'detail' is a good name for namespace dedicated to implementation details being not a part of public interface of a component. I got answer that it as the same issues (it's meaningless) as Impl etc.
Why? Could you please provide details on what their responses are?
The discussion was too long I think (archives are not public) but generally the conclusion was that impl and base suffixes do not carry much information. For example that I put under discussion, the PIMPL-based FileReader using Impl suffixes etc.: class Reader { const std::auto_ptr<ReaderBase> pimpl_; public: // ... }; class ZipReaderImpl : public ReaderBase {...}; class BZipReaderImpl : public ReaderBase {...}; we came to the improved version: class FileReader { class Body; const std::auto_ptr<Body> handle; public: // ... }; class ZipFileReader : public FileReader::Body {...}; class BZipFileReader : public FileReader::Body {...}; I agree that the latter is more verbose telling what is what, and placing elements better regarding concepts it uses (handle-body). Given that, namespace detail was judged as similarly not much informative as Impl and Base suffix. On the other hand, all this is based on actual convention used in a project. If team members agree and understand what 'detail' means, then I can't see anything wrong with using it. Though, namespace private_ (with underscore), sounds a little bit better. I hope it clarifies the point. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net