on Sat Jan 03 2009, Joel de Guzman <joel-AT-boost-consulting.com> wrote:
2) There's only one compelling reason I've heard so far, and that is from Dave (A): "if there are 4-5 sublibraries that also have non-mnemonic names, it does start to look pretty confusing."
well, thanks, but...
I am open to changing the names "Qi" and "Karma" to something non-abstract. The names: Spirit.RD and spirit.Gen come to mind. Spirit.Parsing is not a good name because there can be a Spirit.LL1, Spirit.LR, Spirit.Packrat.
I am open to suggestions. At any rate, I'd want to reserve the right to choosing the names.
...I agree 100%, and I wouldn't necessarily want you to change the names of Qi and Karma based on my argument. You have built a vibrant Spirit community and the names that community came up with are an expression of its culture. Frankly, I think it would be un-boost-like to impose such a mandate. We traditionally leave such choices in the hands of the library developer. If you choose to leave the names as they are, I only ask that you be aware of the cognitive value that is lost by using non-mnemonic names, and go the extra mile to make it easy for users to learn (and remember!) what the names mean. Frankly, I think I've forgotten -- I think Qi is the parsing part, but I wouldn't lay any serious money on it. -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com