Douglas Paul Gregor <gregod@cs.rpi.edu> writes:
On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Peter Dimov wrote:
Douglas Paul Gregor wrote:
On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Peter Dimov wrote:
But the question is why (and the name is boost::fs). Claiming the identifier 'fs' in the boost namespace isn't more evil than claiming the identifier 'ref' or 'type' or 'bind'... or 'function', if you will.
I'm not going to defend "type", because I'm not thrilled that it's there. As for the others, only "ref" is an abbreviation, but we're knocking something that's huge ("reference_wrapper", 17 characters) and is often used several times in one line of code down to 3 characters.
I think it's a fuzzy line in the sand, so all I really know is that I do like "ref" and don't like "fs" :)
Yes, is seems that it comes down to personal preference. Dave likes to say filesystem, and you don't like fs. Out of curiosity, do you like 'std'?
Yes, actually. Part of my weighting scheme has to do with how often I need to type it. With filesystem, for instance, I either use it very sparingly (and don't mind the typing), or I'm using it like mad and will go with an alias no matter what. With "std", I need it all the bloody time for everything, so it better be short. (Kind of like "ls" or "cd").
That's basically my philosophy. Couple that with a belief that the use of indcphrble abbrevs should be a conscious choice on each programmer's part, and not forced upon them by cruel or lazy library authors <wink>, and I think you can understand why I don't like boost::algo or boost::fs by default. If I could think of a better alternative I might say the same about boost::mpl. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com