[Bioperl-l] use of no_* to mean 'number_of', negative booleans

[Chris Fields]

We could probably alias nof_* with num_* just for consistency, but  
leave nof_* as is and not deprecate it (I don't think anyone would  
confuse nof* with no*).

chris

On Jun 9, 2009, at 1:41 PM, Florent Angly wrote:

> Agree! no_* is prone to misunderstandings.
> Also, some BioPerl code uses nof_*, which I quite like.
> Florent
>
> Hilmar Lapp wrote:
>> Great suggestions, I'm all for it.
>>
>>    -hilmar
>>
>> On Jun 9, 2009, at 12:08 PM, Chris Fields wrote:
>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>> I've noticed a few methods in bioperl with names like 'no_Foo'  
>>> that mean 'number of Foo' (such as SimpleAlign's no_sequences).   
>>> The problem I foresee are possible ambiguities, particularly with  
>>> negative boolean checks (eg 'no_Foo' could also mean 'this  
>>> instance contains no Foo'), something that BioPerl also has with  
>>> various settings.
>>>
>>> I suggest we alias these as num_* to disambiguate that.  There's  
>>> no easy way to change already in-place flag setting w/o going  
>>> through a deprecation cycle, but we can promote using positive  
>>> booleans where possible (eg 'is_foo' or 'has_foo' instead of  
>>> 'no_foo').  We can leave the older 'no_*' methods as is for the  
>>> time being and maybe deprecate them later.
>>>
>>> If no one has objections I'll add these in as needed.
>>>
>>> chris
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bioperl-l mailing list
>>> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
>>> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bioperl-l mailing list
> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l