RE: [dali-dev] Re: Dali naming convention for getter methods

[Brian Vosburgh <BRIAN.VOSBURGH@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, given the number of discussions about these "conventions" we've
had among ourselves over the last 7 or 8 years, there's no way we could
accuse you of being "smart-alecky" without being guilty ourselves. :-)
What you are suffering from is the manifestation of our group's indecision.
We have even been discussing this over the last few weeks, amongst ourselves,
as we try to clean up our public/provisional API.

I guess there are a number of options [discussion]:

1. Prefix the name of any method that returns a value with "get". [This fits
the JavaBean spec; but the JavaBean spec is of questionable value. This 
doesn't quite mesh with "action" methods that return a value as a result
of the action - e.g. parse(), run(), calculate(). This allows code-assist
users to quickly find methods that return a value; assuming the users have
memorized method names such as hashCode() and iterator().]

2. Never prefix a method name with "get". [This eliminates the redundacy in
the name. This avoids making a decision as to whether a method is a "getter"
or an "action" the returns a value.]

3. Something we have done in a previous development effort:
Prefix the name of any true "getter" with "get"; i.e. any method
that simply returns the value of a field/instance variable is tagged
with a "get". [This feels closer to what the JavaBean spec seems to represent.
But the implementation is exposed a bit. And it doesn't really work with
interfaces. {We didn't have much need for many interfaces in the afore-
mentioned dev effort.} This causes problems when the implementation changes
though.]

4. Use "get" on any method that has a corresponding "set" method.
(Let's ignore the idea that maybe we don't need the "set" prefix
either. :-) We don't want to get the Smalltalk bigots involved.)
[I'm not sure of this idea - it's just what has recently crossed
my mind. :-) ]

Anyway, I'm just airing out some of our thoughts. Yours are welcome.
We haven't firmly decided anything, at the moment.

Thanks for your patience, Tom. :-)
Brian

-----Original Message-----
>From Tom Mutdosch <tommut@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent Tue 3/25/2008 2:53 PM
To General Dali EJB ORM developer discussion. <dali-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject [dali-dev] Re: Dali naming convention for getter methods

Tom Mutdosch wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> One thing that I've noticed -- and this may be a silly question -- but 
> is there some particular strategy or code style guideline used to 
> determine which API getters start with "get" or not?  Example:  
> jpaProject(), jpaFile(), etc, instead of getJpaProject()?  This gets 
> really confusing when using code assist, as my default behavior is to 
> type "get" and then look for all the related getters.  Of course, I 
> don't see any.  I then have to hunt up and down the entire list of 
> methods looking for any methods that may be what I need.  This also 
> makes it hard to determine which methods are returning results, versus 
> which are performing an action  (Example: PersistentType.dataSource() 
> versus PesistentType.update()).  It probably would be less of an issue 
> if this convention was used everywhere, but a lot of times there are 
> getters that start with "get" provided by parent classes, so in the 
> method hierarchy you actually do see both getters that start with 
> "get" and those that don't, which confuses matters even more.  Again, 
> this is not a big deal; it just always causes me momentarily 
> confusion.  I figured there was a reason, so was just curious why the 
> normal "get" convention is not generally used.  :)
>
> Thanks
> Tom
Hi guys,

I realize that my question may have come off smart-alecy when I 
originally asked about the naming convention for getter methods, so my 
apologies.  I actually was just genuinely curious about the convention, 
as I know that eclipse and WTP often utilize conventions that eventually 
filter on down to other developers like myself.  I just didn't know if 
it was as simple as "all the API are essentially getters, so a 'get' 
prefix is redundant" or if there were other factors.  I really don't 
mind; was just interested from a fellow developer standpoint. 

-Tom
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