Conventions Used in This Book

Pseudocode examples explain many of the guidelines in a concrete manner. I try to make the examples as generic as possible, as this is not a language guide. The code uses a combination of conventions from a number of languages. Class names use uppercase separation (e.g., ClassName ). Attributes, variables , and method names use lowercase with underscores (e.g., method_name( ) ),   la the C++ Standard Template Library and Python.

For classes for which you must access an object's attributes, I show assignment to and from the attributes, as if they were properties of Eiffel or C#. In other languages or with other conventions, you probably will use get and set methods .

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, directories, and Unix utilities.

Constant width

Indicates commands, options, switches, variables, attributes, keys, functions, types, classes, namespaces, methods, modules, properties, parameters, values, objects, events, event handlers, XML tags, HTML tags, macros, the contents of files, and the output from commands. It also indicates class outlines in pseudocode.

  User input  

Shows user input or message transactions.

Boldface

Indicates states or enumerated values.

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