Arguments against Hungarian Notation

[Carl Parrish]

Okay I've been bouncing back and forth between several differnt
computers and either my messages haven't be making it to the list or
I've changed my settings to not send me my own messages. Anyway all that
was to say that if you've already seen these I'm sorry. I don't really
have to time to respond the way that Rob's messages deserve but I feel
like I do have to clear some things up here. One I assumed that HN came
from a VB world because VB "used" to be a weak typed language. And in a
weak type language HN is a *very* good idea. (I'm working on a letter
describing how *I* think weak type and dynamic type are *very*
differnt). I've heard it said that VB is currently a dynamic type
language. In a strong type language such as C or Java I don't see that
HN has much of a value add. Or I should say I *didn't* see that it did.
Ruby has convinced me that being able to tell the scope of a varible
from the notation is invaluable, and now that I see that HN also handles
scope I feel a little better about using it. (I'm still not a convert by
any means but willing to admit that I can learn something from it). And
most versions of the Sun Java coding standard that I've read *does*
explictly state not to use HN an example (abet not the "offical" docs)
is here http://www.javaranch.com/style.jsp#intro. HN really does
violates OO abstraction, because in a truelly OO language (wich admittly
Java is not). a varible name should be able to hold *any* type of
object. (I know I'm not going into enough details on that right now I
just don't have the time. after I post my views on dynamic vs. weak
type. i'll try to do a "Rob" version of my idea of OO). 

So in closing Rob sorry I haven't had the time to read all of your post
let alone respond to them all. (I will). But thanks for keeping the
discussions alive on the list. 

Carl Parrish


On Sun, 2002-05-05 at 10:12, Rob Wehrli wrote:
> Kimbro Staken wrote:
> > 
> > Hungarian came out of Microsoft from the C and C++ world, I suspect VB
> > people just picked it up out of imitation without really understanding
> > what it was for.
> 

> 
> I say that if you (Carl) are trying to come up with an attack against HN
> to sell management on it to somehow displace "a *lot*" of VB
> programmers, you're fighting the wrong fight (I think that Alan said it
> first).  Better to deal with the better thing for the largest group in
> this case, IMHO.  ...fight for features, environmental benefits or
> something else worth fighting for and winning.  Your life won't
> seriously be threatened as a result of using HN.
> 

Oh wow!! sorry didn't see this untill I was deleting. *I* don't have to
sell *management* on anything part of why I was hired was to set their
coding standard. I'm trying to decide if its justifiable to try to sell
the other *programers* on not using it or not (still undecided). But I
agree with Alan (and now you) that I have more important things to worry
about. Only to stay consistant if they keep it then *I'll* have to go to
using HN <g>. 

Carl P (for real this time)