Code Craft

A Rose by Any Other Name

There is more to the name game than you’d first think, and there are clearly a lot of considerations for naming bits of code. What are the main principles to pull out?

To invent a good name, do the following:

• Be consistent

• Exploit content

• Use names to your advantage

ALL THAT ENDS WELL

Choosing a suffix is integral to file naming. Java’s build system insists that source filenames end in .java. C and C++ compilers are suffix agnostic, but calling header files something.h is such a universal convention that it would be like sticking pins in your eyes not to do it. We do feel some pain from the lack of rigid definition; there are several conventions for C++ implementation filenames, like the common suffixes .C, .cc, .cpp, .cxx