Rename abstract classes to `AbstractFoo`

[oliverklee]

[sabberworm]

I am a bit confused. In other instances you advocate against naming conventions that let the users infer typing from the name (i.e. hungarian) but in this case you advocate for it?

[oliverklee]

I am a bit confused. In other instances you advocate against naming conventions that let the users infer typing from the name (i.e. hungarian) but in this case you advocate for it?

@sabberworm I try to strive towards code that can be read as a sentence. This means that variable and class names should work as nouns in a sentence.

For example:

• "The size is 42."
• "This is an abstract CSS thing."
• "This is a CSS rule."

Examples where this doesn't work:

• "This (object) is a CSS rule class." (Because instances are instances, not classes.)
• "This is a size integer." (It represents the size, not the type integer.)

Also, I see a class being abstract more of a piece of structural information (it's abstract), not of type information (it's a class).

I'm undecided about the naming of traits, though. ;-)

Does this help understand my way of thinking about naming?

[JakeQZ]

FWIW, I also don't see the need to reinforce that abstract classes are abstract in their name.

Suppose you have a class with one abstract method. Later, you decide to provide a default implementation for that method, and, for completeness, remove the abstract keyword (since the class no longer has any abstract methods and is therefore no longer abstract). If it was previously named AbstractFoo, you'd now have to rename the class, with knock-on effects for all inheritees, or live with a class name that is now plain wrong.

Examples where this doesn't work:

* "This (object) is a CSS rule class." (Because instances are instances, not classes.)

They are, however, objects. $cssRuleString, $cssRuleObject, or just $cssRule? You might conceivably have both a string and an object representing the same thing in the same piece of code, if you start with the string representation and make an object out of it.

* "This is a size integer." (It represents the size, not the type integer.)

It represents the size as an integer. As opposed to representing the size as an object (of some class), or perhaps as a floating-point value.

[oliverklee]

Okay, then closing this as this doesn't look like we won't reach a consensus on this soon, and this particular topic isn't very important to me.

[oliverklee]

They are. however, objects. $cssRuleString, $cssRuleObject, or just $cssRule? You might conceivably have both a string and an object representing the same thing in the same piece of code, if you start with the string representation and make an object out of it.

I'd usually go for $cssRule unless we have two "things" representing the (same) rule with the type being important.