Class/Module Naming Best Practice for Acronyms

[Intransition]

If you are encapsulating something that is generally referred to by an
acronym, is it better to use all caps, even though in Ruby that
usually indicates a constant value of some sort other than a class or
module. Or is better to capitalize the term so it conforms to the
typical look of class/module names.

Eg.

XML:ocument -or- Xml:ocument

POM::Metadata -or- Pom::Metadata

ANSI::Code -or- Ansi::Code

I can't seem to ever make up my mind about this, so I thought I'd ask
and see if there is some sort of general consensus or if someone else
has some sort of concrete basis on which to decide.

 

[pharrington]

If you are encapsulating something that is generally referred to by an
acronym, is it better to use all caps, even though in Ruby that
usually indicates a constant value of some sort other than a class or
module. Or is better to capitalize the term so it conforms to the
typical look of class/module names.

Eg.

  XML:ocument  -or-  Xml:ocument

  POM::Metadata  -or-  Pom::Metadata

  ANSI::Code     -or-  Ansi::Code

I can't seem to ever make up my mind about this, so I thought I'd ask
and see if there is some sort of general consensus or if someone else
has some sort of concrete basis on which to decide.

POM is delicious.

so POM should be capitalized.

(but I myself use all caps for module/class names when such matches
the actual spelling, and libraries such as Nokogiri and JSON seem to
do this too, so that seems like the expected way of doing?)

 

[Joel VanderWerf]

XML:ocument -or- Xml:ocument

It's actually hard for me to type Xml rather than XML or xml.

I prefer the former style. Doesn't bother me that it looks like
non-module constants.

 

[Fabian Streitel]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

(but I myself use all caps for module/class names when such matches
the actual spelling, and libraries such as Nokogiri and JSON seem to
do this too, so that seems like the expected way of doing?)

I second that. If you'd write it all caps in a text document, why not in
source code?

Greetz!

 

[David A. Black]

Hi --

It's actually hard for me to type Xml rather than XML or xml.

I prefer the former style. Doesn't bother me that it looks like non-module
constants.

I agree, and it seems to be standard practice in the standard library
(YAML, Net::HTTP, ERB, etc.).


David

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