Re: pop3.el: Display the size of the message being fetched (POP3 LIST command)

[Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc>]

[ The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has
  been posted to news:gmane.emacs.gnus.general as well. ]

On Tue, Feb 10 2009, Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> "Bojan Petrovic" <bojan_petrovic@fastmail.fm> wrote: 
> BP> Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org> said:
>>> BTW, isn't `pop3-display-message-size', the name of the option,
>>> enough rather than `pop3-display-message-size-flag'?
>
> BP> Yes, the name is really long, but I followed (and possibly 
> BP> misapplied) the advice from Emacs "Coding Conventions":
>
> BP> * If a user option variable records a true-or-false condition, give
> BP>      it a name that ends in `-flag'.

At least one of the current Emacs maintainers (Stefan) disagrees with
this convention.  I don't like it as well, since boolean options often
are extended to allow other values.  The the option would have to be
renamed.  

In Gnus, we never really followed this convention:

,----
| -*- mode: grep; default-directory: "gnus/trunk/lisp/" -*-
| Grep started at Tue Feb 10 23:16:09
| 
| grep -nH -e '^(def.*-flag\>' *.el
| gnus-bookmark.el:91:(defcustom gnus-bookmark-sort-flag t
| imap.el:1756:(defun imap-message-flag-permanent-p (flag &optional mailbox buffer)
| imap.el:2689:(defun imap-parse-flag-list ()
| nnimap.el:1702:(defconst nnimap-mark-to-flag-alist
| nnimap.el:1715:(defun nnimap-mark-to-flag-1 (preds)
| nnimap.el:1721:(defun nnimap-mark-to-flag (preds &optional always-list make-string)
| spam.el:589:(defcustom spam-spamassassin-spam-flag-header "X-Spam-Flag"
| spam.el:594:(defcustom spam-spamassassin-positive-spam-flag-header "YES"
| 
| Grep finished (matches found) at Tue Feb 10 23:16:10
`----

> In addition, "*-size" would imply it customizes a size at first glance.

Not really.  `pop3-display-message-size' is clear IMHO.

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
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