Apollia <apollia...@gmail.com> writes: > Rainer Weikusat <rainerweiku...@virginmedia.com> wrote: > >> Apollia <apollia...@gmail.com> writes:
[...] >>> I often like to use long, descriptive names for functions and >>> variables, [...] >> combined-list-of-files-in-all-source-folders >> >> doesn't really communicate more than 'all-files' or even just 'all' (if >> the files is evident from the context) would. > > Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps as I get more comfortable with > programming in general I'll stop relying so much on the crutch of overly > verbose names. I know I overdo it to some extent. > > But another thing I like about long, unique, non-generic names is that > when doing searches, I can more easily find definitely related pieces > of code, and avoid finding a lot of unrelated pieces of code which > just happen to use the same generic variable names like "x" or "all". [...] A pretty complicated way to express "I think I'm right and you're wrong." (supposed to apply to all of the text, it took me a few hours to think through that), however "So do I.". [next paragraph is a paraphrase of a part of the kernel CodingStyle document I consider to be 'generally sensible' in this respect] On it's own a word (or even a phrase) is meaningless. It's always supposed to be understood in a certain context. Applied to naming in programs, this means one should consider using rather short names if there's a lot of context, eg, for local variables, and longer ones if they have to stand on their own, eg, public functions or global variables. [followed by my own, insignificant opinion] There should be no reason to do global searches for local names. That's a bit like cutting up people in order to determine what food they apparently like. In an expression, combined-list-of-files-in-all-source-folders is very unwieldly. Imagine this as (if (<= (- (* number-of-files-in-all-source-folders average-number-of-lines-per-file-in-source-folders) (* number-of-files-in-all-letter-folders average-number-of-lines-per-file-in-letter-folders))) 'write-some-more-code-in-future 'reply-to-a-few-letters) [the first silly contrived example I could come up with] Almost all of this is letters of names and the code itself is dwarfed by them. But the names, no matter how expressive, only communicate intent and not facts. And that's also a lot of text to express very little, ie, a program written in this way will either end up being of epic proportions or accomplish very little. _______________________________________________ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng