Re: [ggt-devel] another potential usability issue from naming

[Ben S. <bs...@vr...>]

On Thu, 30 May 2002, Kevin Meinert wrote:

> > 
> > Not a book, but experience. When an object has a property, do you write a 
> > set/make method pair to manipulate it or a set/get pair? What does the 
> > industry standard tell you? What does any UML tool use while reverse 
> > engineering a diagram from the code to determine an object's properties?
> > 
> 
> might need a get for retrieval.  but we know all gets are actually sets... 
> :)

But only as a (sometimes nasty) side-effect.

> 
> and we also know the gets and sets don't return out the back (just because 
> of how we chose to implement - object oriented C).

And I'm suggesting that we don't make that requirement. I'm saying that 
anything that's manipulating a property on an object should be set/get. 
ie.

Matrix4ff mat;
Vec3f v;
setTrans(mat, v);
v = getTrans(mat);
getTrans(mat, v);

I would prefer using "get" to having to use "make" for the middle 
function since this is a common idiom that I and I hope (could be wrong 
though) most OO programmers are familiar with. I guess I don't see why we 
should create our own idiom just because we happen to be doing OO in C 
rather than C++. To me, the language doesn't matter when it comes to 
naming.

> 
> since you wanted it out the back as temporary, then it is make.  I can't 
> remember what the original issue is anymore.  Does this clear it up?

I understand how GMTL is currently implemented. Completely clear on that! 
I realize that currently if i want something out the back of a function I 
have to use a "make" function. My issue is that I don't feel that this is 
a good naming convention for the reasons listed before and am trying to 
show you guys as to why. All I seem to get back from you is a description 
of how it is currently implemented and that I should use that. Perhaps you 
could give me a reason as to why it should be implemented that way.

> 
> just write a set( vec, mat ) and a set (mat, vec), and you'll be golden.
> if you need a constructor, use "make"...  
> 
> The only way to have constructors in C, or the only way to decouple 
> constructors from C++ objects is to have "make" functions.  Is it the 
> naming you don't like?  I don't see the problem I guess...

We're not really doing C. We're doing C++ and we DO have constructors. In 
no way does a "make" function decouple the constructor from the object.

> 
> kevin
> 
> 
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cheers, 
-----
Ben Scott
Research Assistant VRAC
bs...@ia...