[jboy]

"Sometimes you must bow to existing convention" is indeed a reasonable point, so I suppose I should clarify/refine my position.

If you're implementing an STL-like container in C++, then absolutely -- you should stick with the convention: `empty`, `clear`, `size`, etc. To deviate from that convention would be an exercise in confusing the users of your code. You should make a note in the class comment that it deviates from any other project-wide naming scheme because it conforms to the STL container interface, and move on.

But if you're creating a C++ class that is NOT intended to be an STL-like container (or if you're not working in C++!), then I'd argue that it would be better to go with `is_empty` & `make_empty` (if you're applying this prefix naming scheme across the rest of your codebase) for the benefits I've described above.

[honkhonkpants]

I think make_clear is just not good style. It conflicts in meaning with std::make_unique, which allocates a std::unique_pointer. When I see make_clear I think it allocates a new, empty object.