Asset Types Should Have "Asset" In The Name

[greeble-dev]

TLDR: Any type that derives Asset should end its name with "Asset". Less ambiguity, more typing.

When I started using Bevy, I struggled to remember which types were components and which were assets. Both are nouns and often come in related pairs, but the distinction can appear arbitrary at first glance.

Asset	Component
Mesh	Mesh2d/Mesh3d
Scene	SceneInstance
StandardMaterial etc	MeshMaterial2d/MeshMaterial3d
AnimationGraph	AnimationGraphHandle

After this proposal:

Asset	Component
MeshAsset	Mesh2d/Mesh3d
SceneAsset	SceneInstance
StandardMaterialAsset etc	MeshMaterial2d/MeshMaterial3d
AnimationGraphAsset	AnimationGraph

The component names are quite varied, but it's always clear that an asset is an asset.

Downsides:

• Painful migration.
  • Type aliases can only help a little bit.
  • I don't know the implications for serialization compatibility.
• Assets<MeshAsset> is clunky.
  • Although this might change if assets become entities? Query<MeshAsset>?

Overall, I'm 95% confident this is a "no", or a "might have been nice four years ago :P", but worth a shot. I'm also guessing this has been discussed previously, but I couldn't find anything.

Alternatives

1. Components that are simply an asset handle get "Instance" in their name.
   • So AnimationGraph -> AnimationGraphInstance.
   • But "are simply an asset handle" hides a lot of ambiguity - an AudioPlayer is a handle to an AudioSource, but is it really an AudioSourceInstance?
2. Don't change the real types, just add aliases.
   • type MeshAsset = Mesh
   • Probably just more confusing.