On 14/09/2011 16:51, Uri Guttman wrote:
"PJ" == Paul Johnson<p...@pjcj.net> writes:
PJ> On Tue, Sep 13, 2011 at 11:34:34PM -0400, Uri Guttman wrote:
>> here is another good reason to stay aways from single letter var
>> names. they are hard to search for as other vars which start with those
>> letters will also be found.
PJ> This may be the worst argument I have ever heard against using
PJ> single letter variable names. Please don't let your code be held
PJ> hostage to the tools you are using, especially if there are better
PJ> tools available.
show me a tool that can search for single letter names cleanly and with
little effort as compared to longer names. also this isn't the only
reason, just one of several.
PJ> My own take on variable names is that naming is one of the hardest
PJ> problems in software development, and that the length of a
PJ> variable name should reflect the length of the scope in which it
PJ> is visible. A single letter variable name is fine in a small
PJ> loop, for example. A larger scope would call for a
PJ> correspondingly larger variable name.
PJ> And as with other names, a single letter variable name should
PJ> reflect its purpose as much as possible, to further aid our
PJ> understanding; $q for a queue, $c for a customer, $n for a count
PJ> and so forth. The problems start to occur when we have a customer
PJ> and a context, for example, and at that point having a variable
PJ> named $c is more if a hindrance than a help. That's when you
PJ> would want $cust and $cxt, or $customer and $context depending on
PJ> the size of their scope.
and $q or $c is still a poor name even in a tight scope. it tells
nothing to the reader about the content of the variable. it is just a
placeholder for the author. you might as well just use $_ everywhere you
can. names need to convey information about variable usage. single
letter ones have very little information.
Uri we are all privileged with your thoughts on variable naming. My last
attempt to say that perhaps you weren't always right wrong resulted in a
personal attack saying "you had that blowup a few months ago. are you
doing that again?" Given that you choose not even to punctuate American
English properly I find your position less than convincing.
Also, as I posted before, if you forbid even the very minimum of $i, $n,
$x, $y, $z, $h, $m, $s then your advice is destructive bigotry.
Please cease.
Rob
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