[R] Dots in function names

[Thomas Lumley]

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Mike Prager wrote:

> Recent R function names seem to be using CaseOfTheLetters to mark words
> rather than dots as was done previously.  Is the use of dots in function
> names deprecated, or is that simply a style choice?  Will function names
> with dots cause problems in future revisions?
>

There are, and always have been, problems with using dots because of the 
way S3 methods work.  These are getting worse as more functions become 
generic but are getting better as more methods are in namespaces and thus 
registered.

I don't expect dots to go away any time soon, so the choice between 
name.with.dots(), name_with_underscores(), runonname(), and 
nameCamelCased() is really a stylistic one.

 	-thomas