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Comment by charliesome | Hacker News Reader

> Second, perhaps cool URIs don't change, but it seems like http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html is kind of an unfortunate URI. What's "Provider"? Why are "Provider" and "Style" uppercase?

They're uppercase because they're uppercase. Asking why is like asking why Rubyists like_using_method_names_like_this and .NET devs LikeUsingMethodNamesLikeThis.

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Convention is for URLs to be all lowercase, which IMO aids in readability and certainly makes them easier to type (imagine giving a URL to a friend over the phone -- remember this is 1999).

Well luckily for you, the URI is case-insensitive and redirects (301) to the canonical version.

The standard is that hostnames are case-insensitive, but non-FQDN paths should allow both uppercase (especially for systems which don't include lower-case elements, yes, Virginia, they exist) and lowercase elements.

I agree that method_names_like_this is more readable, even (or, especially) after many years of .NET programming. I used the_style_like_this back in C++ days and, honestly, miss it. Perhaps, the renaissance of C++ in the form of C++11 will bring it back :)

like_using_method_names_like_this is more readable. White space has been in use to separate words since the time of Alciun, and that's the closest way to do it. Call me conservative but I prefer to stick to the insights of the last 1400 years rather than mangle them horribly ;-)

Oh, and I am not a Ruby developer ;-)

Whitespace is nice but underscores aren't whitespace. They also leave a zigzag effect that isn't wonderful.

They are the closest thing you can have to whitespace. That's the point. Actually come to think of it, they are underlined whitespace ;-)

As for a zigzag effect I think CamelCasing is at least that bad, maybe moreso.

Wondering if I get points for bringing early Medieval history into a discussion on coding conventions ;-)

What do you mean by zigzag effect?

The it isn't actually

word+empty-space+word

but

word+line-down-below+word

so your eyes go zig-zag from the taller glyphs of the word to the low glyph of the underscore (vertical zig zag motion), instead of jumping to the next world (horizontal).

funny, I was just checking because I have never noticed my eyes doing that and afaics my eyes still scan horizontally. I don't need to look down to see the underscore. I guess YMMV?

Actually I read somewhere that the decision for Ruby using underscored names as a naming convention was because of the very large number of non-native English speakers in the early days of the language. Something along the lines of it was easier to read for non-native speakers because it more closely mimicked spaced English.

Searching for the source now.

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