Removing underscores

[Bill Schwab]

Ron,

==================
It would appear that there is a fix for underscores but apparently the
community at large does not support them.  So although I agree that
underscores in methods and class names *SHOULD* be supported, how does
the
team feel about removing them from our code?
==================

Do whatever you think is best.  If you want to play along with the group
to gain acceptance, so be it.  If you want to draw an underscore in the
sand, that's ok too (though we might lose the fight), I'll gladly add a
voice to the background noise.

Squeak certainly should allow underscores in class names and selectors.
Your example (TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA) is extreme, but makes
the point beyond ANSI and inter-dialect compatibility.  The "it will
break old code" argument is weak IMHO - old code outside the image has
probably broken due to changes anyway, so the compiler errors are most
likely just the beginning.

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bills@...
Tel: [phone]
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[Ron Teitelbaum]

My biggest concern is that others will have trouble loading our code.  I
suppose that we could release the patch to allow underscores as part of our
package, but then we will be responsible for watching that method for
changes later.  I still have not tried to find out why it works in my image.
I wonder if it's an update from GLORP?

Rob, how did you finally get it to work, or did underscores in class names
just work in windows?

Ron

> From: Bill Schwab
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 11:33 AM
>
> Ron,
>
> ==================
> It would appear that there is a fix for underscores but apparently the
> community at large does not support them.  So although I agree that
> underscores in methods and class names *SHOULD* be supported, how does
> the
> team feel about removing them from our code?
> ==================
>
> Do whatever you think is best.  If you want to play along with the group
> to gain acceptance, so be it.  If you want to draw an underscore in the
> sand, that's ok too (though we might lose the fight), I'll gladly add a
> voice to the background noise.
>
> Squeak certainly should allow underscores in class names and selectors.
> Your example (TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA) is extreme, but makes
> the point beyond ANSI and inter-dialect compatibility.  The "it will
> break old code" argument is weak IMHO - old code outside the image has
> probably broken due to changes anyway, so the compiler errors are most
> likely just the beginning.
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
> Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
> University of Florida
> Department of Anesthesiology
> PO Box 100254
> Gainesville, FL 32610-0254
>
> Email: bills@...
> Tel: [phone]
> FAX: [phone]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cryptography mailing list
> Cryptography@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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[Rob Withers]

On Oct 6, 2006, at 9:12 AM, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:

> Rob, how did you finally get it to work, or did underscores in  
> class names
> just work in windows?

A class name is just a symbol, so I just quoted it when defining the  
class.

Rob

>
> Ron
>
>> From: Bill Schwab
>> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 11:33 AM
>>
>> Ron,
>>
>> ==================
>> It would appear that there is a fix for underscores but apparently  
>> the
>> community at large does not support them.  So although I agree that
>> underscores in methods and class names *SHOULD* be supported, how  
>> does
>> the
>> team feel about removing them from our code?
>> ==================
>>
>> Do whatever you think is best.  If you want to play along with the  
>> group
>> to gain acceptance, so be it.  If you want to draw an underscore  
>> in the
>> sand, that's ok too (though we might lose the fight), I'll gladly  
>> add a
>> voice to the background noise.
>>
>> Squeak certainly should allow underscores in class names and  
>> selectors.
>> Your example (TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA) is extreme, but  
>> makes
>> the point beyond ANSI and inter-dialect compatibility.  The "it will
>> break old code" argument is weak IMHO - old code outside the image  
>> has
>> probably broken due to changes anyway, so the compiler errors are  
>> most
>> likely just the beginning.
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
>> University of Florida
>> Department of Anesthesiology
>> PO Box 100254
>> Gainesville, FL 32610-0254
>>
>> Email: bills@...
>> Tel: [phone]
>> FAX: [phone]
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Cryptography mailing list
>> Cryptography@...
>> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ 
>> cryptography
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> cryptography

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[Ron Teitelbaum]

What's your opinion about removing them from our code?

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Withers [mailto:reefedjib@...]
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 12:53 PM
> To: Ron@...; Cryptography Team Development List
> Subject: Re: [Cryptography Team] Removing underscores
>
>
> On Oct 6, 2006, at 9:12 AM, Ron Teitelbaum wrote:
>
> > Rob, how did you finally get it to work, or did underscores in
> > class names
> > just work in windows?
>
> A class name is just a symbol, so I just quoted it when defining the
> class.
>
> Rob
>
> >
> > Ron
> >
> >> From: Bill Schwab
> >> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 11:33 AM
> >>
> >> Ron,
> >>
> >> ==================
> >> It would appear that there is a fix for underscores but apparently
> >> the
> >> community at large does not support them.  So although I agree that
> >> underscores in methods and class names *SHOULD* be supported, how
> >> does
> >> the
> >> team feel about removing them from our code?
> >> ==================
> >>
> >> Do whatever you think is best.  If you want to play along with the
> >> group
> >> to gain acceptance, so be it.  If you want to draw an underscore
> >> in the
> >> sand, that's ok too (though we might lose the fight), I'll gladly
> >> add a
> >> voice to the background noise.
> >>
> >> Squeak certainly should allow underscores in class names and
> >> selectors.
> >> Your example (TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA) is extreme, but
> >> makes
> >> the point beyond ANSI and inter-dialect compatibility.  The "it will
> >> break old code" argument is weak IMHO - old code outside the image
> >> has
> >> probably broken due to changes anyway, so the compiler errors are
> >> most
> >> likely just the beginning.
> >>
> >> Bill
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
> >> University of Florida
> >> Department of Anesthesiology
> >> PO Box 100254
> >> Gainesville, FL 32610-0254
> >>
> >> Email: bills@...
> >> Tel: [phone]
> >> FAX: [phone]
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Cryptography mailing list
> >> Cryptography@...
> >> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/
> >> cryptography
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cryptography mailing list
> > Cryptography@...
> > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/
> > cryptography
>

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[Hans-Martin Mosner]

Ron Teitelbaum schrieb:
> What's your opinion about removing them from our code?
>
> Ron
>  
I'd say remove them underscores - at the moment they make more trouble
than what they're worth.
For names of classes and methods, we can use the CamelBack form.
The main advantage of underscores is that they allow you to take names
from existing APIs and use them as-is. This is especially valuable in
generated code, but I don't think we need that here. Or do we?

Cheers,
Hans-Martin
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[Ron Teitelbaum]

I agree.  The names of the classes do come directly from the protocol, but
their value is arguable.  I agree with Bill though that interfaces to DB's
is a good example of where underscores should be allowed.  I really don't
understand the argument for not allowing them, or the argument that they are
aesthetically displeasing.  They seem reasonable to me.

Given the potential problems for others to load the code absent a major
argument within the community to allow them, I think we should remove them.

Ron  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cryptography-bounces@...
> [mailto:cryptography-bounces@...] On Behalf Of
> Hans-Martin Mosner
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 2:24 PM
> To: Cryptography Team Development List
> Subject: Re: [Cryptography Team] Removing underscores
>
> Ron Teitelbaum schrieb:
> > What's your opinion about removing them from our code?
> >
> > Ron
> >
> I'd say remove them underscores - at the moment they make more trouble
> than what they're worth.
> For names of classes and methods, we can use the CamelBack form.
> The main advantage of underscores is that they allow you to take names
> from existing APIs and use them as-is. This is especially valuable in
> generated code, but I don't think we need that here. Or do we?
>
> Cheers,
> Hans-Martin
> _______________________________________________
> Cryptography mailing list
> Cryptography@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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[Hans-Martin Mosner]

Ron Teitelbaum schrieb:
> I agree.  The names of the classes do come directly from the protocol, but
> their value is arguable.  I agree with Bill though that interfaces to DB's
> is a good example of where underscores should be allowed.  I really don't
> understand the argument for not allowing them, or the argument that they are
> aesthetically displeasing.  They seem reasonable to me.
>  
Original Smalltalk-80 had a left-arrow glyph at character code 16r5F
where ASCII has the underscore.
In my opinion it was an unfortunate choice, but IIRC the development of
ASCII and of Smalltalk somewhat overlapped in time, and at one point in
time the ASCII precursor had left arrow and up arrow at the position
where Smalltalk-80 used them for the assignment and return symbols.
When I came to learn Smalltalk, I found the Smalltalk style of
EmbeddedCaps much more visually pleasing than the style of
ALL_UPPERCASE_LETTERS_WITH_UNDERSCORES which was prevalent in most
programming languages at the time, but this was probably more due to the
uppercase letters than the underscores.
Nowadays, with Unicode as the character encoding of choice, there's not
much reason left to disallow the underscore in identifiers, except the
backwards compatibility argument. But I'm fairly sure that the Squeak
community will burn that bridge one day - it might just not be tomorrow.

Cheers,
Hans-Martin
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[Craig Latta]

Hi Ron--

> Given the potential problems for others to load the code absent a
> major argument within the community to allow them, I think we should
> remove them.

     I think that's the best argument, sadly.

     I'll just throw out, though, that if we move to a system that can
transfer behavior without requiring source code at all (e.g., Spoon[1]),
then this issue is utterly moot.


-C

p.s.

> I really don't understand.. the argument that they are aesthetically
> displeasing.  They seem reasonable to me.

     As I understand it, the underscore character is considered
aesthetically displeasing because it's a typewriter hack, intended for
underlining things (typing other characters, moving the carriage
backward, and overtyping some underscores). It's considered ugly because
it's an anachronism, and the subsequent hack of separating tokens in a
human's mind within what a machine considers a single token is not
sufficient to redeem it (and that the hack of using it for assignment is
more worthwhile, mostly because it is displayed as something else).

     For the sake of good taste and tact I will refrain from divulging
my own personal opinion about it. ;)

[1] http://netjam.org/spoon

--
Craig Latta
http://netjam.org/resume


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[Ron Teitelbaum]

Thanks for the explanation!  It makes more sense now.  I noticed that in my
image aTemp_'hello' blew up but aTemp _ 'hello' didn't.  It appeared to need
a space to determine if the underscore was an assignment character.  I would
seem that the Unicode replacement of an arrow would be needed before
allowing _ since it appears to support both.

Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cryptography-bounces@...
> [mailto:cryptography-bounces@...] On Behalf Of
> Hans-Martin Mosner
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 2:56 PM
> To: Cryptography Team Development List
> Subject: Re: [Cryptography Team] Removing underscores
>
> Ron Teitelbaum schrieb:
> > I agree.  The names of the classes do come directly from the protocol,
> but
> > their value is arguable.  I agree with Bill though that interfaces to
> DB's
> > is a good example of where underscores should be allowed.  I really
> don't
> > understand the argument for not allowing them, or the argument that they
> are
> > aesthetically displeasing.  They seem reasonable to me.
> >
> Original Smalltalk-80 had a left-arrow glyph at character code 16r5F
> where ASCII has the underscore.
> In my opinion it was an unfortunate choice, but IIRC the development of
> ASCII and of Smalltalk somewhat overlapped in time, and at one point in
> time the ASCII precursor had left arrow and up arrow at the position
> where Smalltalk-80 used them for the assignment and return symbols.
> When I came to learn Smalltalk, I found the Smalltalk style of
> EmbeddedCaps much more visually pleasing than the style of
> ALL_UPPERCASE_LETTERS_WITH_UNDERSCORES which was prevalent in most
> programming languages at the time, but this was probably more due to the
> uppercase letters than the underscores.
> Nowadays, with Unicode as the character encoding of choice, there's not
> much reason left to disallow the underscore in identifiers, except the
> backwards compatibility argument. But I'm fairly sure that the Squeak
> community will burn that bridge one day - it might just not be tomorrow.
>
> Cheers,
> Hans-Martin
> _______________________________________________
> Cryptography mailing list
> Cryptography@...
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

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[Bill Schwab]

Craig,

================================
> I really don't understand.. the argument that they are aesthetically
> displeasing.  They seem reasonable to me.

     As I understand it, the underscore character is considered
aesthetically displeasing because it's a typewriter hack, intended for
underlining things (typing other characters, moving the carriage
backward, and overtyping some underscores). It's considered ugly because
it's an anachronism, and the subsequent hack of separating tokens in a
human's mind within what a machine considers a single token is not
sufficient to redeem it (and that the hack of using it for assignment is
more worthwhile, mostly because it is displayed as something else).

     For the sake of good taste and tact I will refrain from divulging
my own personal opinion about it. ;)
================================

My intent here is not to start a flame war, but I find the aesthetic
line of reasoning to be completely irrelevant.  Why should your sense of
aesthetics have anything to do with my efficiency?  Squeak's objections
to underscores are becoming ever more elective.  I submit that the "all
but first character" fix should have been included in the mainstream
years ago.

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bills@...
Tel: [phone]
FAX: [phone]

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