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<title>Naming Conventions</title>
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<h1>Naming Conventions</h1>
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<p>While this may sound like a small detail, clear method naming is important to provide an API that developers familiar with event-based programming can pick up quickly.</p>
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<p>Since the idea of a method call maps very neatly onto that of a received event, all event handlers are simply methods named after past-tense verbs. All class names are descriptive nouns, designed to mirror the is-a relationship of the abstractions they implement. All requests for notification or transmission are present-tense imperative verbs.</p>
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<p>Here are some examples of this naming scheme:</p>
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<li>An event notification of data received from peer:
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<code class="python">dataReceived(data)</code></li>
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<li>A request to send data: <code class="python">write(data)</code></li>
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<li>A class that implements a protocol: <code class="python">Protocol</code></li>
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<p>The naming is platform neutral. This means that the names are equally appropriate in a wide variety of environments, as long as they can publish the required events.</p>
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<p>It is self-consistent. Things that deal with TCP use the acronym TCP, and it is always capitalized. Dropping, losing, terminating, and closing the connection are all referred to as <q>losing</q> the connection. This symmetrical naming allows developers to easily locate other API calls if they have learned a few related to what they want to do.</p>
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<p>It is semantically clear. The semantics of dataReceived are simple: there are some bytes available for processing. This remains true even if the lower-level machinery to get the data is highly complex.</p>