abstract naming conventions

[Shemp]

We are having a debate in our organization about naming conventions for
abstract classes. The three proposed methods are:

1) Prefix the class name with abstract. Example: AbstractUser
2) Prefix the class name with a: Example aUser
3) Don't do anything to the class name.

I would appreciate hearing what everyone else is doing for naming abstract
classes.

Thanks!

[Silvio Bierman]

"Shemp" <st**********@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:btRec.30344$rg5.48802@attbi_s52...

We are having a debate in our organization about naming conventions for
abstract classes. The three proposed methods are:

1) Prefix the class name with abstract. Example: AbstractUser
2) Prefix the class name with a: Example aUser
3) Don't do anything to the class name.

I would appreciate hearing what everyone else is doing for naming abstract
classes.

Thanks!

Usually the name of a class would indicate some of it's characteristics. It
being abstract is just one, don't see why that should neccesarily be encoded
in its name. The second option seems in contradiction with the convention
that classnames start with an uppercase letter.

Silvio Bierman

[Yoyoma_2]

Silvio Bierman wrote:

"Shemp" <st**********@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:btRec.30344$rg5.48802@attbi_s52...

We are having a debate in our organization about naming conventions for
abstract classes. The three proposed methods are:

1) Prefix the class name with abstract. Example: AbstractUser
2) Prefix the class name with a: Example aUser
3) Don't do anything to the class name.

I would appreciate hearing what everyone else is doing for naming abstract
classes.

Thanks!

Usually the name of a class would indicate some of it's characteristics. It
being abstract is just one, don't see why that should neccesarily be encoded
in its name. The second option seems in contradiction with the convention
that classnames start with an uppercase letter.

I agree, if you have an abstract factory that makes, i don't know
aircract. You say AbstractAircraftFactory. i think that's pertty clear.
Poeple know exactly what that does. Even though the factory is a
Singleton, i sometimes omit the singleton for clarity.

An implementation of AbstractAircraftFactory could be AircraftFactoryCSV
that loads aircraft data from a CSV file.

If you want an example of this kind of naming scheme check out the
school project report i did, it has tons of patterns and java names like
that. http://andre.bonin.ca under projects and "BoninsoftATC"

[ErstwhileIII]

Shemp wrote:

We are having a debate in our organization about naming conventions for
abstract classes. The three proposed methods are:

1) Prefix the class name with abstract. Example: AbstractUser
2) Prefix the class name with a: Example aUser
3) Don't do anything to the class name.

I would appreciate hearing what everyone else is doing for naming abstract
classes.

Thanks!

Option 3 is the best choice. Do not be tempted to go down the path of
overloading the class name with attributes of the class (which could,
perhaps, change over time). Look at the problems that the debate is
trying to resolve. There may be some other issue hidden here
(documentation and training on the classes being used for new
developers? fuzzy or imprecise or improper class decomposition for the
system being created? other?).

Regards,
ErstwhileIII

[iamfractal]

ErstwhileIII <er**********@netscape.net> wrote in message news:<3-********************@comcast.com>...

Shemp wrote:

We are having a debate in our organization about naming conventions for
abstract classes. The three proposed methods are:

1) Prefix the class name with abstract. Example: AbstractUser
2) Prefix the class name with a: Example aUser
3) Don't do anything to the class name.

I would appreciate hearing what everyone else is doing for naming abstract
classes.

Thanks!

Option 3 is the best choice. Do not be tempted to go down the path of
overloading the class name with attributes of the class (which could,
perhaps, change over time). Look at the problems that the debate is
trying to resolve. There may be some other issue hidden here
(documentation and training on the classes being used for new
developers? fuzzy or imprecise or improper class decomposition for the
system being created? other?).

Regards,
ErstwhileIII

For what it's worth, GoF's design patterns does nothing with the
abstract class name, but prefixes the implementation class with,
"Concrete".

..ed

www.EdmundKirwan.com