Control? Object?

[David Bovill]

I have the same issue :)

I started a long time ago to name handlers with the concept of "object"
rather than "control" - it was more intuitive. The word "object" has
associations for the new user which makes it easier to grasp the related
concepts of "property" and so forth. Livecode is rooted in the
object-oriented paradigm of small-talk, and HyperCard - and many of the
concepts such a "stack", "card" and "field" etc are layered on top of this
metaphor. The problem is that they are not pure objects in a technical
sense, and the term is sort of reserved for a possible future expansion of
the vocabulary. I am not sure if this will ever happen, and in the mean
time we are left with a clear metaphor, and a confusing reality. I've
decided to live with it :)

So when I refer to a "field" in a variable I use "fieldObject" rather than
"fieldControl", or with a virtual property I use "put the field_Object of
this card..." rather than "field_Control". This is partly because i don;t
want to confuse (myself) and other readers with a terminology that sound
too much like Model View Controller architecture - or the idea that you are
"doing something" ie "controlling" the concept in question.

So my answer is that while creating an abstraction in how I code, I name
things using the best metaphor I can find, so often I will think in terms
of concrete objects, with properties that may or may not be implemented
with a "control", a "group", or more recently a "widget". The most abstract
concept is "object" which can refer to any of those - but I try to avoid it
where possible and use a more explicit name of the term "view" - so
"textView" or "the index_View of this card".

On 19 June 2016 at 08:19, Richmond <richmondmathewson at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am currently teaching some children Livecode programming and ran into
> some difficulty
> on Friday when a child asked me why the menus were full of the word
> "Control"
> when I had been talking about "Objects".
>
> Well?
>
> How about changing every use of the word "Control" to "Object"?
>
> Enhancement Request 17879
>
> Richmond.
>
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