Thread: Superficial Syntax thread: Your favorite keywords/class names etc.

  1. #16
    C++ Witch laserlight's Avatar
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    Math has functions.
    But mathematics has a method in the madness
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  2. #17
    Ethernal Noob
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    and mathematics are boring

  3. #18
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    I'm a geek. I like weird acronyms for patterns or functionality, like RAII or SFINAE.
    All the buzzt!
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  4. #19
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DavidP View Post
    I mainly prefer "function" because I like to go back to programming's roots: math. Math has functions.
    I think that's why some people prefer method. Not all programming functions are actual functions in the math sense.

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidP View Post
    I also prefer "elegant" rather than "robust". I don't mind robust though. I think it is a good word. I just like thinking of something as "an elegant way of doing things" or "an elegant solution."
    I generally hear robust used to describe systems that perform well during failures, bad input, or malicious input. I think its quite different from elegant.


    I'm ok with basically every convention mentioned in this thread.

  5. #20
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    I like the Pascal def of function vs method: functions return a value and methods don't.

  6. #21
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thantos View Post
    I like the Pascal def of function vs method: functions return a value and methods don't.
    I see... so Method according to Pascal is the equivilent to a Visual Basic's Sub.
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  7. #22
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    /shrug
    Never learned VB as I don't learn fake languages

  8. #23
    Devil's Advocate SlyMaelstrom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thantos View Post
    /shrug
    Never learned VB as I don't learn fake languages
    Surely you've encountered it in your life experiences.

    Either way, I don't agree with the definition. While you can surely say that you would expect a function to return a value... I don't really see why one would say a method would not return some sort of useful result. I generally use the two as mentioned above with classes. However, they are of subtle difference. I do, however, always use the term properties when talking about an object's constant or variable members.
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  9. #24
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    In C++, and following the creator own terminology, member functions and member variables are the usual terminology used to describe functions and variables of a class. I understand this is not the same on all languages. If I recall correctly Java users use method and properties.

    I don't see a problem with any way, albeit I prefer to use the term that is more spread in whatever language I'm working on in order to make myself better understood.

    It's been always my thought that Method and Property usage seem to focus more on the object instance since this is where those nouns make more sense, I think. Whereas member function and member variable make more sense when describing a class... particularly in C++ where the terms pointer to method or friend method don't make much sense at all.

    Getter and Setter on the other hand are mostly VB, and as far as I know also used as a terminology in C#. They don't seem to be that spread around C++ programmers. I prefer the collective term accessor functions but find myself using getter and setter when not thinking about it. This is so mostly, I think, because I always prefix them with get and set.
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  10. #25
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thantos View Post
    I like the Pascal def of function vs method: functions return a value and methods don't.
    Aren't the latter called procedures?
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  11. #26
    Lurking whiteflags's Avatar
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    Aren't procedures methodical in execution? I think they could be synonyms.

  12. #27
    & the hat of GPL slaying Thantos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CornedBee View Post
    Aren't the latter called procedures?
    I would have to double check as I haven't done Pascal in a while.

  13. #28
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    I only ever used Borland's Turbo Pascal IDE when I was learning programming (Pascal was my first non-line numbered language, prior to that it was all BASIC on an IBM PCjr), but the keywords were definitely Functions and Procedures.

    I never heard "method" until I started learning Java, but I don't particularly like that term for a function. A method to me is a way of doing something, which is more like an algorithm than a function. The method is the algorithm used while the function is the implementation of the algorithm.

    Learning C was a bit of a shock in that regard as instead of Functions and Procedures, everything was a function (even if it doesn't return anything), but the keyword "function" wasn't used. I've been doing some Visual Basic programming for a project at work (automating an Excel spreadsheet to generate a web page so the maintainer of the project only needs to update the spreadsheet and then hit the [Generate] button) which uses "Function" and "Sub" much like Pascal's function and procedure. I'm sure there's a reason for having to include the keywords, but bleh, I like C's syntax so much better.
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  14. #29
    l'Anziano DavidP's Avatar
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    but I don't particularly like that term for a function. A method to me is a way of doing something, which is more like an algorithm than a function. The method is the algorithm used while the function is the implementation of the algorithm.
    I agree 100%.

    I prefer the collective term accessor functions but find myself using getter and setter when not thinking about it. This is so mostly, I think, because I always prefix them with get and set.
    I always divide my C++ classes into the following sections:
    - member variables
    - constructors/destructors
    - accessors
    - modifiers
    - operators
    - actions (actions is kind of a category that i defined myself)

    That is the terminology I always heard, and when I first learned C++ the AP classes (apstring, apvector, apmatrix, etc.) divided their classes into those categories (except for actions), and so I do the same. I define accessors as functions that grab data from an object. modifiers are functions that modify the data of the object. actions are functions of the object that modify external things that are not part of the object (i.e. raising an event or drawing a shape on a surface which was passed into the function as an argument)
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  15. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thantos View Post
    /shrug
    Never learned VB as I don't learn fake languages
    Fake languages used to develop real software...

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