'reduces programming errors' - this is in the context of people learning to program, or professional programmers?
Is there quantitative evidence for the assertion? How would you account for the success of Perl with the plethora of $_ and @_ and %_ ? How do you deal with the idea that in a sense the machine 'understands' English-like keywords like if and repeat, but doesn't understand programmer-chosen identifiers? In the sense of how do you explain that to students? -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kari Laitinen Sent: 24 February 2005 15:29 To: [email protected] Subject: PPIG discuss: Natural naming & imaginary computer Hello, everybody, In 1992, I presented in a PPIG workshop a paper related to natural naming. Natural naming in programming means simply that you should not use abbreviations in the names (identifiers, symbols) when you write computer programs. Instead, all the names of methods, classes, variables, constants, etc. should be constructed of several natural words. In my opinion and experience, the use of natural names makes programs more readable and understandable, and, in particular, trying to invent descriptive names during the process of program creation stimulates the thinking process and reduces programming errors. My obsession towards the use of natural names has continued since the early 90s. It is, though, very difficult to scientifically prove that indeeed abbreviations should be avoided in programming. What I have noticed during the last decade is that natural names have become popular in standard classes and methods of programming languages like Java and C#, but it is still quite popular to use abbreviations when programs are written with these languages. During the last ten years I have been teaching students with material that contains progarms with natural names. It seems that some students who use natural names in their programs seem to perform very well, but, on the other hand, there are still students to whom programming is difficult. During the recent years I have produced a couple of books in which all programs are written with natural names. Sample pages of these books can be found via the address http://www.naturalprogramming.com/ To quikly learn the basic operating principles of computers, I have developed a simple imaginary computer. For the imaginary computer there is a quite nice simulator which is available in address http://www.naturalprogramming.com/IC8/index_for_ic8.html Those pages of my recent book which explain the imaginary computer are freely available via the mentioned addresses. The imaginary computer should be studied before a person really starts to study computer programming. My opinion is that a person should first know the basic principles of computer operation before he or she can learn to write computer programs. I there is somebody interested in my old research papers, something can be found at http://www.naturalprogramming.com/free_downloads.html Best regards, Kari -- Mr. (Dr.) Kari Laitinen Oulu Institute of Technology, Finland http://www.naturalprogramming.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
