[JJR]

I have noticed that a number of projects disobey Walter's D style guide for module names. That is, some modules are using upper case letters in the filenames. The original argument against mixing cases was to avoid "problems with case insensitive file systems."

Example:

IReader.d

or

ireader.d

Obviously, some people are not concerned about the filesystem problem. This little poll should bring peoples opinions on the matter to light. If you want to offer your opinion for or against the original naming style guide, please post a message that describes your perspective on the matter.

[SpottedTiger]

JJR thanks for reminding me about this...even though I read the D style guide, I was about to make the mistake of creating a module name with mixed case. It seems Windows just allows a lot more freedom in naming files than those darn Unix-like OSs, which I guess include the current Mac X OS too...that it's easy to forget the D style guide golden rule. Above, I've voted for all lowercase as the D style guide suggested.
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[JJR]

[larsivi]

I believe problems will arise when (in *nix) a module name use different case than the file. E.g

Filename:

foobar.d

Modulename:

FooBar

As long as the same case is used in both filename and modulename, there shouldn't ever be a problem (I would call it a compiler/some other-tool-bug.) Then again, I believe that the modulename is only used for filelookup when files are included for compilation through the -I switch instead of explicit inclusion on the command line. Several people have noted that the module name can be different from the filename, but then it cannot be found through the -I switch.

As for readility, I don't mind all-lower-case module names (in fact I've been using them myself) and have nothing against mixed-case names.

[JJR]

Good points, lars. Thanks for your input. I think module names should alsways match the filenames.

[jcc7]

I got the impression that on Linux a directory could contain each of these files:
somemodule.d
someModule.d
Somemodule.d
SomeModule.d
SOMEMODULE.D

That could cause me problems checking out such a directory from SVN under Windows.

I'd recommend we try to keep them all lowercase to help things work correctly across platforms. I think having this simple convention is useful. But the compiler won't require such a convention, so people can make their own choices.

[JJR]

Hello Justin,

You are correct. Those are all different filenames on Linux.

Wouldn't that only cause trouble on windows if you tried to use several of these filenames in the same directory space? Wouldn't that be considered very bad style to try to keep multiple files in the same directory with the case being the only differentiating factor? Is the risk of that happening so great that we should not attempt a mixed cased naming scheme?

So we can accomplish safe practices by either:

1) ditching bad naming schemes
2) ditching mixed case naming schemes for cross-OS consistancy

Either way, the goal could be accomplished.

Windows lack of case-specificity is a severe OS limitation. But at least it still allows the filenames to use mixed casing.

But there is an instance where the problem could be significant (if D were someday ported): if there are any OSes out there that completely eliminate the mixed casing (automatically save a filename to all caps or all lower case), we could have a big problem. That way the module name declared inside would no longer maintain consistancy with the filename. This is probably what Walter was predicting. Currently, D hasn't been ported to any such OS.

I see arguments going both ways. So I'm still sitting the fence with this one.

Thanks for your input, Justin.

- John