[vtk-developers] MTime Olympics

[Brad King]

On 08/15/2016 04:14 PM, Bill Lorensen wrote:
> vtkTypeMTime versus vtkMTimeType.

I have no strong preference but can add some info here.

> Most of vtk uses vtkFooType except in vtkType.h where
> vtkTypeFoo is preferred.

The naming in "vtkType.h" can be interpreted as a "vtkType" prefix
(much like vtkSomeClass) followed by the type name of interest.
This reads well only when the type name obviously corresponds to
a primitive type (e.g. Int64).  The only reason vtkIdType appears
there is it was a natural place to adopt the definition.

For types naming abstract concepts it may not read as well
(e.g. vtkTypeId v. vtkIdType).  The name vtkTypeMTime sounds
like it is somehow a modification time on types.  The name
vtkMTimeType sounds like it is the type of a modification time.

-Brad