[Bf-committers] Meeting minutes, june 27 2010

[Matt Ebb]

On 28/06/2010, at 01:12 , Ton Roosendaal wrote:

> - Campbell worked on proposals for naming properties, is a discussion  
> topic for this week.
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Architecture/RNA#Naming_Conventions 
>  http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:2.5/Source/Architecture/RNA/Cleanup

I see here there's a proposal to modify the names based on the type of data they represent (eg. use_ prefixes and _factor suffix). What's the reasoning behind this? It seems in several cases it makes the property names more verbose, awkward and less clear on what they actually do.

For example there are some like use_clip that sound a bit weird because they're verbs - you don't "use clip" or "not user clip", you just "clip" or "not clip". Same for others like "use_active", by setting a boolean you want to say "it is active" or "it is not active", not "it is use active".

There's also another issue with using the suffix "_factor" for any float with range 0.0-1.0. Factor literally means a multiplier, but this is not the right term to use in a lot of situations - even the given example of glossiness is not really a factor, it represents a continuum between fully rough and fully shiny, it's not anything that gets multiplied/scaled.

Anyway, I understand if you want to make it consistent there will be times where it doesn't quite fit, but I'm wondering why this is really necessary at all to force it like this? Especially with python when you can inspect the data type already, and with RNA subtype info as well, do we really need to try and mark it in the property names too?

cheers,

Matt