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• Software bug/defect classification

  - by Dustin K

  We're trying to come up with terms that better describe our bugs/defects. To us, the term 'bug' or 'defect' is too generic and doesn't accurately reflect what is happening. For example, instead of saying that there is a bug (in the general sense), we'd rather say what type of bug (an error, or enhancement, or improvement, etc.). What names do you use for describing 'bugs'? I found http://www.softwaredevelopment.ca/bugs.shtml which has some pretty good classifications. How do you classify them?

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• "My stuff" vs. "Your stuff" in UI texts

  - by John Isaacks

  When refering to a users stuff should you use My or Your, for example: My Cart | My Account | My Wishlist Or Your Cart | Your Account | Your Wishlist I found this article that argues for the use of your. It says flikr does this. It also says MySpace and MyYahoo are wrong. I also noticed today that Amazon uses the term Your. However, I have heard they are the masters at testing variations and finding the best one, so what you see on their site might be the best variation, or simply something they are currently testing. I personally like the way my looks better, but thats just my opinion. What do you think? What will hever the better impact on customers? Does it really even matter?

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• Should one always know what an API is doing just by looking at the code?

  - by markmnl

  Recently I have been developing my own API and with that invested interest in API design I have been keenly interested how I can improve my API design. One aspect that has come up a couple times is (not by users of my API but in my observing discussion about the topic): one should know just by looking at the code calling the API what it is doing. For example see this discussion on GitHub for the discourse repo, it goes something like: foo.update_pinned(true, true); Just by looking at the code (without knowing the parameter names, documentation etc.) one cannot guess what it is going to do - what does the 2nd argument mean? The suggested improvement is to have something like: foo.pin() foo.unpin() foo.pin_globally() And that clears things up (the 2nd arg was whether to pin foo globally, I am guessing), and I agree in this case the later would certainly be an improvement. However I believe there can be instances where methods to set different but logically related state would be better exposed as one method call rather than separate ones, even though you would not know what it is doing just by looking at the code. (So you would have to resort to looking at the parameter names and documentation to find out - which personally I would always do no matter what if I am unfamiliar with an API). For example I expose one method SetVisibility(bool, string, bool) on a FalconPeer and I acknowledge just looking at the line: falconPeer.SetVisibility(true, "aerw3", true); You would have no idea what it is doing. It is setting 3 different values that control the "visibility" of the falconPeer in the logical sense: accept join requests, only with password and reply to discovery requests. Splitting this out into 3 method calls could lead to a user of the API to set one aspect of "visibility" forgetting to set others that I force them to think about by only exposing the one method to set all aspects of "visibility". Furthermore when the user wants to change one aspect they almost always will want to change another aspect and can now do so in one call.

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• Etymology of software project names [closed]

  - by Benoit

  I would like to have a reference community wiki here in order to know what etymology software name have or why they are named that way. I was wondering why Imagemagick's mogrify was named this way. Today I wondered the same for Apache Lucene. It would be handy to have a list here. Could we extend such a list? Let me start and let you edit it please. I will ask for this to be community wiki. For each entry please link to an external reference. GNU Emacs: stand for “Editor MACroS”. Apache Lucene: Armenian name Imagemagick mogrify: from “transmogrify”. Thanks.

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• Why is Quicksort called "Quicksort"?

  - by Darrel Hoffman

  The point of this question is not to debate the merits of this over any other sorting algorithm - certainly there are many other questions that do this. This question is about the name. Why is Quicksort called "Quicksort"? Sure, it's "quick", most of the time, but not always. The possibility of degenerating to O(N^2) is well known. There are various modifications to Quicksort that mitigate this problem, but the ones which bring the worst case down to a guaranteed O(n log n) aren't generally called Quicksort anymore. (e.g. Introsort). I just wonder why of all the well-known sorting algorithms, this is the only one deserving of the name "quick", which describes not how the algorithm works, but how fast it (usually) is. Mergesort is called that because it merges the data. Heapsort is called that because it uses a heap. Introsort gets its name from "Introspective", since it monitors its own performance to decide when to switch from Quicksort to Heapsort. Similarly for all the slower ones - Bubblesort, Insertion sort, Selection sort, etc. They're all named for how they work. The only other exception I can think of is "Bogosort", which is really just a joke that nobody ever actually uses in practice. Why isn't Quicksort called something more descriptive, like "Partition sort" or "Pivot sort", which describe what it actually does? It's not even a case of "got here first". Mergesort was developed 15 years before Quicksort. (1945 and 1960 respectively according to Wikipedia) I guess this is really more of a history question than a programming one. I'm just curious how it got the name - was it just good marketing?

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• Project Codenames - Yea or Nay?

  - by rmx

  Where I work, most of our projects have (or at least attempt) descriptive, useful names. However we have a few with names that make no sense: I found that an assembly named WiFi which actually has nothing whatsoever to do with wi-fi, but is a codename. When I asked why, I was told that it's to protect company secrets incase some intern has few too many at the pub on Friday and starts chatting about the brand new 'WiFi' project he's been working on. Its clear that some people find enjoyment in finding silly / amusing codenames for their projects (like in this question). My question is: is it really a good idea to use codenames for your projects or are you better off spending the time to decide upon a descriptive name? My opinion is that in the long-run its better to give your projects relevant names. My reasoning is that if you can't think of a decent name, perhaps you don't really know the requirements well enough. I think there are better ways to 'protect company secrets' and I find it quite confusing when the name does not correlate at all with the content. It's just common sense, surely?! So do you use codenames and what the your reasons for or against this seemingly common, yet annoying (to me at least) practice?

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• Better use on the name of variables

  - by Cuartico

  I have a method that looks like this: Public Function NormalizeStreetAddress(country As Namespace.Country, streetAddress As Namespace.StreetAddress) _ As Namespace.StreetAddress Dim _streetAddress As New Namespace.StreetAddress = streetAddress If My.Settings.Streeteable = True Then Dim _AddressCustom As New Namespace.AddressCustom _streetAddress = _AddressCustom.NormalizeStreetAddress(country, streetAddress) End If Return _streetAddress End Function I receive a streetAddress object, but inside the method I need to use another streetAddress object which I called _streetAddress — is that following the standard? A friend of mine told me that object names such as _yourNameObject are for global variables, but I can't find info about this and I want to make this method more readable.

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• C: What is a good source to teach standard/basic code conventions to someone newly learning the language ?

  - by shan23

  I'm tutoring someone who can be described as a rank newcomer in C. Understandably, she does not know much about coding conventions generally practiced, and hence all her programs tend to use single letter vars, mismatched spacing/indentation and the like, making it very difficult to read/debug her endeavors. My question is, is there a link/set of guidelines and examples which she can use for adopting basic code conventions ? It should not be too arcane as to scare her off, yet inclusive enough to have the basics covered (so that no one woulc wince looking at the code). Any suggestions ?

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• Intentional misspellings to avoid reserved words

  - by Renesis

  I often see code that include intentional misspellings of common words that for better or worse have become reserved words: klass or clazz for class: Class clazz = ThisClass.class kount for count in SQL: count(*) AS kount Personally I find this decreases readability. In my own practice I haven't found too many cases where a better name couldn't have been used — itemClass or recordTotal. However, it's so common that I can't help but wonder if I'm the only one? Anyone have any advice or even better, quoted recommendations from well-respected programmers on this practice?

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• Test descriptions/name, say what the test is? or what it means when it fails?

  - by xenoterracide

  The API docs for Test::More::ok is ok($got eq $expected, $test_name); right now in one of my apps I have $test_name print what the test is testing. So for example in one of my tests I have set this to 'filename exists'. What I realized after I got a bug report recently, and realized that the only time I ever see this message is when the test is failing, if the test is failing that means the file doesn't exist. In your opinion, do you think these $test_name's should say what the test means if successful? what it means if it failed? or do you think it should say something else? please explain why?

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• "A", "an", and "the" in method and function names: What's your take?

  - by Mike Spross

  I'm sure many of us have seen method names like this at one point or another: UploadTheFileToTheServerPlease CreateATemporaryFile WriteTheRecordToTheDatabase ResetTheSystemClock That is, method names that are also grammatically-correct English sentences, and include extra words purely to make them read like prose. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of such "literal" method names, and prefer to be succint, while still being as clear as possible. To me, words like "a", "an", and "the" just look plain awkward in method names, and it makes method names needlessly long without really adding anything useful. I would prefer the following method names for the previous examples: UploadFileToServer CreateTemporaryFile WriteOutRecord ResetSystemClock In my experience, this is far more common than the other approach of writing out the lengthier names, but I have seen both styles and was curious to see what other people's thoughts were on these two approaches. So, are you in the "method names that read like prose" camp or the "method names that say what I mean but read out loud like a bad foreign-language-to-English translation" camp?

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• Case convention- Why the variation between languages?

  - by Jason

  Coming from a Java background, I'm very used to camelCase. When writing C, using the underscore wasn't a big adjustment, since it was only used sparingly when writing simple Unix apps. In the meantime, I stuck with camelCase as my style, as did most of the class. However, now that I'm teaching myself C# in preparation for my upcoming Usability Design class in the fall, the PascalCase convention of the language is really tripping me up and I'm having to rely on intellisense a great deal in order to make sure the correct API method is being used. To be honest, switching to the PascalCase layout hasn't quite sunk in the muscle memory just yet, and that is frustrating from my point of view. Since C# and Java are considered to be brother languages, as both are descended from C++, why the variation in the language conventions? Was it a personal decision by the creators based on their comfort level, or was it just to play mindgames with new introductees to the language?

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• Is it bad practice to use the same name for arguments and members?

  - by stijn

  Sometimes I write constructor code like class X { public: X( const int numberOfThingsToDo ) : numberOfThingsToDo( numberOfThingsToDo ) { } private: int numberOfThingsToDo; }; or in C# class X { public X( int numberOfThingsToDo ) { this.numberOfThingsToDo = numberOfThingsToDo; } private int numberOfThingsToDo; } I think the main reason is that when I come up with a suitable member name, I see no reason to use a different one for the argument initializing it, and since I'm also no fan of using underscores the easiest is just to pick the same name. After all it's suitable. Is this considered bad practice however? Any drawbacks (apart from shooting yourself in the foot when forgetting the this in C#)?

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• Why it is called "hash table", or "hash function"? Hash doesn't make any sense to me here

  - by Saeed Neamati

  It's now about 4 years of development that I'm using, hearing, talking about, and implementing hash tables and hash functions. But I really never understand why it's called hash? I remember the first days I started programming, this term was kind'of cumbersome terminology to me. I never figured out what is it, based on its name. I just experimentally understood what it does and why and when should we use it. However, I still sometimes try to figure out why it's called hash. I have no problem with table or function and to be honest, they are pretty deductive, rational terms. However, I think better words could be used instead of hash, like key, or uniqueness. Don't key table or uniqueness table. According to my dictionary, hash means: Fried dish of potato and meats (highly irrelevant) # symbol (AKA number sign, pound sign, etc.) (still irrelevant, maybe just a mis-nomenclature) Apply algorithm to character string (still has nothing to do with uniqueness, which is the most important feature of a hash table) Cut food Another term for hashish Does anyone know why it's called hash?

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• What are good words for defining multiples?

  - by Scott Langham

  In databases you might take about one-to-many. This means there's one thing that maps to zero or more others. In this kind of style I'm looking for words that define min/max amounts of things. So far, I have: min max one 1 1 many 0 infinite optional 0 1 ??? 1 infinite Is there a single word that fits '???' to mean more than one? Do you have better alternatives for 'optional'? I'm wondering if there are any conventional names for those concepts?

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• Software bug/defect classification

  - by Dustin K

  We're trying to come up with terms that better describe our bugs/defects. To us, the term 'bug' or 'defect' is too generic and doesn't accurately reflect what is happening. For example, instead of saying that there is a bug (in the general sense), we'd rather say what type of bug (an error, or enhancement, or improvement, etc.). What names do you use for describing 'bugs'? We found http://www.softwaredevelopment.ca/bugs.shtml which has some pretty good classifications. How do you classify them?

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• How should compound words be handled when coding? Is there a definitive list of compound words? [closed]

  - by Ray

  QUESTION: How should you handle compound words when programming? Are there any good lists available online for developers of generally accepted technology-related compound words? I can see how this is highly ambiguous, so should I just use common-sense? EXAMPLE: I would be inclined to do this: filename NOT FileName or login NOT LogIn However, the microsoft documentation indicates that filename is not compound. So I wonder, is there a more definitive source? See also, this english.stackexchange discussion on filename. Under the section "Capitalization Rules for Compound Words and Common Terms" located here: Microsoft .NET Capitalization Conventions only offers a limited introduction into the topic, and leaves it up to the developer to use their intuition with the rest.

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• C: What is a good source to teach standard/basic code conventions to someone newly learning the language?

  - by shan23

  I'm tutoring someone who can be described as a rank newcomer in C. Understandably, she does not know much about coding conventions generally practiced, and hence all her programs tend to use single letter vars, mismatched spacing/indentation and the like, making it very difficult to read/debug her endeavors. My question is, is there a link/set of guidelines and examples which she can use for adopting basic code conventions ? It should not be too arcane as to scare her off, yet inclusive enough to have the basics covered (so that no one woulc wince looking at the code). Any suggestions ?

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• What is the architectural name for the set of data that enables UI choices?

  - by Richard Collette

  I have separate service methods that fetch business object data and the data for UI selection input such as radio buttons, check-boxes, combo-boxes, etc. I want to name my service methods that fetch the selection data appropriately. I am assuming that Model and ViewModel would not be part of the name because the selection data is but a portion of the Model or ViewModel. What might this set of data be named such that I can name my service method?

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• Why are cryptic short identifiers still so common in low-level programming?

  - by romkyns

  There used to be very good reasons for keeping instruction / register names short. Those reasons no longer apply, but short cryptic names are still very common in low-level programming. Why is this? Is it just because old habits are hard to break, or are there better reasons? For example: Atmel ATMEGA32U2 (2010?): TIFR1 (instead of TimerCounter1InterruptFlag), ICR1H (instead of InputCapture1High), DDRB (instead of DataDirectionPortB), etc. .NET CLR instruction set (2002): bge.s (instead of branch-if-greater.signed), etc. Aren't the longer, non-cryptic names easier to work with?

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• How to define a natural id in database?

  - by gcc

  There are a lot of manuals. I am trying to create an database to hold information of these documents. But, there is a small problem. How can I give meaningful id to the manuals? Are there any standard or logic behind the giving meaningful id to the documents? If there is no standard, can you tell me how I should do that? example: table : manual id | manual name EDIT: Not Meaningful ID 1 or M1 or foo 2 C2 bar 3 P123 name ... ... ... (i) (ii) (iii) (i) Not meaningful for me because if some item deleted, there can be gap. ex 1 33 100. (ii) random character can be confusing when one try to give a name to new manual (iii) Why giving name is not preferred is because finding a name to the manual as ID is hard after 500 manuals. Meaningful : New ID * Can be easily produced even if after 1000 manuals * Should not be so complicated

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• Tasks, jobs, activities, operations... which term to use when?

  - by Paul Stovell

  My application has a number of different asynchronous 'things' that it performs: There are things that fire off a schedule (every 5 minutes) There are things that are fired when a user clicks a button There are things that are triggered by an incoming web service call I use the terms like this: Scheduled things = Jobs User-triggered things = Tasks Web service-triggered things = Operations Tasks are quite complicated, so they're implemented using a hierarchy of different objects which I call Activities (operations and jobs may also begin to use these Activities as their building blocks). I feel like I might be using the wrong terms - for example, would you expect something that happens every 5 minutes automatically to be a Job or a Task? Is there an industry standard for this? All of the words seem to mean the same thing.

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• How to name setter that does data conversion?

  - by IAdapter

  I'm struggling with how to name this method, I don't like the "set" prefix, because I feel it should be reserved for normal "dumb" setters and some tools might not like it (i did not check it in checkstyle, pmd, etc., but I got a feeling they won't like it.) for example (in java, but I feel its language agnostic) public void setActionListenerClicked(boolean actionListenerClicked) { this.actionListenerClicked = actionListenerClicked ? "1" : "0"; } The only purpose of this method is ONLY to set, this method is needed and cannot be joined with any other (because of framework used). P.S. I DO know that question is similar to How to name multi-setter?, but I feel its not the same question.

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• How to name multi-setter?

  - by IAdapter

  I'm struggling with how to name this method, I don't like the "set" prefix, because I feel it should be reserved for normal "dumb" setters and some tools might not like it (i did not check it in checkstyle, pmd, etc., but I got a feeling they won't like it.) for example (in java, but I feel its language agnostic) public void setField1Field2(String field1, String field2) { this.field1 = field1; this.field2 = field2; } The only purpose of this method is ONLY to set, this method is needed and cannot be joined with any other (because of framework used).

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• How do you avoid name similarities between your classes and the native ones?

  - by Oscar

  I just ran into an "interesting problem", which I would like your opinion about: I am developing a system and for many reasons (meaning: abstraction, technology independence, etc) we create our own types for exchanging information. For instance: if there is a method which is called SendEmail and is invoked by the business logic, it way have a parameter of type OurCompany.EMailMessage, which is an object which is completely technology independent and contains only "business relevant data" (for instance, no information abut head encoding). Inside the SendEmail function, we get this information from our EMailMEssage object and create a MailMessage (this one is technolgy specific) object so it can be sent over the network. As you can already notice, our class has a very similar name to the "native" language class. The problem is: this is exactly what they are, email messages, so it is hard to find another meaningful name for them. Do you have this problem often? How do you manage it? Edit: @mgkrebbs just commented about using fully qualified names. This is our current approach, but a little bit too verbose, IMHO. I would like something cleaner, if possible.

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