Just my 0.02 here.  On a previous project, we used renames on packages.
The creator of the package was responsible for coming up with the 3 to 4
character abbreviation of the class (ie. Message_Composite_Class => MCC),
and it was placed in the documentation of the spec.  The user of the class
was only allowed to use that abbreviation, or full path.  That way, every
one quickly learned the acronyms, so that after a short while you didn't
even need to look at the top of the body to see what the acronyms renamed.
If you allow each user to make up their own acronyms for the classes they
are renaming in the top of each package body, you will be constantly going
to see what the acronyms mean.

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Reagan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 2:50 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "use" statements...


At 11:18 AM 11/6/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Robin,
>You might want to check out Rational Apex. I don't believe you should be
>deciding on whether to qualify names or not simply because you have
>antiquated tools.

The first criteria that I use to decide if I want to reuse someone else's
code
is to bring it up and read it (prior to installing/compiling). If I'm going
to rely on this code for my own project, I need (at least) a warm-fuzzy from
looking at it. The issue of finding where the call goes is trivial. I should
have been more clear in my original message. It is just an annoyance to have
to leave where I am (and break my train-of-thought) simply to see that a
call
goes to one of several possible places.

Does RA have a free version that runs on FreeBSD/IA-32? (my development
platform
of choice). This is for my own project (at home) and I'm not willing to
spend the
money on a commercial IDE when, even at work, I use emacs because the
commercial
IDEs that I have seen/used are not as useable (IMHO). I have emacs heavily
customized and extended. But this is a digression that is better discussed
at
another time. :)

I realize this is just a style issue but when writing code specifically to
be
used by others, It makes sense to make it as readable as possible.
("readable"
is the part that differs from person to person and makes this a sticky issue
that is unlikely to be solved here).

Thanks,

--        _
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    / / / |^| \ \ \  Robin Reagan
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"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the
limits of the world."---Schopenhauer