Naming convention (programming)

Abstract: A system and method is provided defining a standard software application development framework that can be customized and linked to building blocks by various utilities and project layers, to implement standard business rules in an assembled code. Application developers can set programming standards through a template. By setting these standards, application developers use the system and method to define the naming convention, appearance of the code, reserve places for the comments, and ensure that specific types of code appear at a predefined locations in the code. The template is used while assembling the code.

Abstract: A development tool for control programs for industrial controllers develops an area-model detailing equipment and phases of operation of the equipment of a controlled process. This area-model is used as a framework for integrating reusable program fragments together into a cohesive control program. The area-model provides a naming convention for otherwise conflicting variables of the reused control components that preserves the identity of the control variables for subsequent programming. The renaming convention may be tracked so that other program portions stored together with the control program fragments in a library of object templates may be interconnected through the same or other editing systems.

Abstract: There are a number of empirical studies that assess the benefit deriving from the use of documentation and models in the execution of maintenance tasks. The greater part of these studies are quantitative and fail to analyze the values, beliefs, and assumptions that inform and shape source code comprehensibility and maintainability. We designed and conducted a qualitative study to understand the role of source code comments and identifiers in source code comprehensibility and maintainability. In particular, we sought to understand how novice and young professional developers perceive comments and identifier names after they have inspected the system behavior visible in its user interfaces. Novice developers were 18 third-year Bachelor students in Computer Science. The young professional developers were 12 and had work experience in between 3 months and 2 and half years. The used qualitative methodological approach is ethnographic. We asked the participants to inspect the behavior of a Java application visible in its user interfaces and then to comprehend and modify the source code of that application. We immersed ourselves and participated to the study, while collecting data by means of contemporaneous field notes, audio recordings, and copies of various artifacts. From the collected data, we have identified insights into comprehension and maintenance practices. The main insights can be summarized as follows: (i) with respect to novice developers, professional developers prefer to deal with identifier names rather than comments, (ii) all the participants indicate as essential the use of naming convention techniques for identifiers, and (iii) for all the participants the names of identifiers are important and should be properly chosen. Summarizing, independently from the kind of developer, it is advisable to use naming convention techniques and to properly choose identifiers.

Abstract: A variety of mechanisms are disclosed for a dynamically binding native methods in an interpreted bytecode program to functions that are contained in compiled code, such as a dynamically linked library. In one implementation, a shared function is specified by means of a naming convention that is appropriate for the bytecode interpreted program, such as a package of classes. When a native method is to be resolved during loading of a class, the name of the package is examined to see if the method resides in a shared library. If so, it is loaded using techniques that are specific to the compiled code in which the library exists. In another embodiment, a designated base class, or interface, is used to identify the method by which the shared library is to be loaded. In a third type of implementation, a given method requests a class to specify which libraries it needs to be linked to, as it is being loaded, after which the libraries are loaded and the class methods are linked to them.