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I see 3 ways of writing headend:

  • headend
  • head end
  • head-end

Note, I already know that all of them are acceptable but it has to be one that would be better.

To make the problem more interesting, if I would apply CamelCase convention to it, it should be Headend or HeadEnd?

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What exactly are you asking? All three variants occur, but most people won't even know what the "word" means. It's somewhat specialised vocabulary, so I suggest in most cases where you might use it, you're interacting with others who are also using it. Copy the form they use. – FumbleFingers Dec 13 '11 at 18:25
@Sorin: You will need to say what you mean by "it has to be one that would be better". Do you mean which of the three is best? (How-to-camelcase is a separate question, I think, than that.) If so, best for what? BTW, edit the question to fix its problems, rather than explaining in a comment. – jwpat7 Dec 13 '11 at 18:30

closed as too localized by FumbleFingers, Jim, kiamlaluno, Mahnax, Matt Эллен Aug 28 '12 at 10:03

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3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

I've seen all three variations, though head-end looks the clearest and unambiguous to me.

For CamelCase, there is no official definition, but I'd go with headEnd.

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up vote 1 down vote

Not knowing quite what you mean by "better," I'd go with the conventions that an industry leader like Cisco observes in this document:

  • headend, in one conjoined word
  • Headend, with no camel cap in the middle
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up vote 0 down vote

I'll assume you're using this in the context of the head end of a list or something similar, as opposed to the tail end.

"Headend" is not a word. "Head" is here an adjective and "end" is the noun, so "head-end" would be the adjective form, e.g. "The head-end object is..." The noun, which it sounds like you're looking for, is just plain "head end," e.g. "The head end of the list..." Therefore, the camel-case capitalization, if you must use it, would be "headEnd."

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