DRAFT document on coding conventions in kde libraries

[Thiago Macieira]

Olivier Goffart wrote:
>Hello,
>
>There is AFAIK not yet a document that tell conventions used in the KDE
>library. That's why I wrote one.
>
>I'd like to place it in developper.kde.org

developer.kde.org

>What have i forget ?
>
>Do you like the idea ?

Thank you, that's a good idea.

A few comments and ideas, though:

- for the naming, mention that acronyms are to be lowercased too. Example: 
isNssEnabled instead of isNSSEnabled

- for d-pointers, I'm not sure I like the idea of using a nested class 
called Private. Qt uses an external class all over.

- also, it might be interesting to add somewhere that complex code that 
can should be moved to the private class itself. This gives the compiler 
one extra register to work with, since you won't be using "d" all the 
time. Again, Qt does this all over the place.

- please add that the constness of the d-pointer is to be used if the 
class won't be creating & destroying its d-pointer. If it is going to 
implement an implicit sharing mechanism, it should consider using 
QSharedDataPointer and make the private class derive from QSharedData.

- getters should all be const, unless there's a strong reason against 
that.

- public classes should include the _EXPORT macro for the library they are 
on. Non-public classes should not and should be declared in the .cpp file 
or in a header ending in _p.h.

- all reference count variables should use QAtomic: do not implement your 
own refcounting mechanism using "int".

- explicit: yes, unless the whole point is to allow implicit casting

- namespacing: unless dealing with the central KDE libraries (kdecode, 
kdeui), classes should be in the library namespace. New libraries should 
choose their namespace.

- finally, add that these are guidelines and that developers may deviate 
from them if they have strong reason to, but should avoid doing so. And 
make it clear that this applies to KDE libraries, not to application 
libraries nor application code.
-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
    PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
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