Hi all, If you haven't yet, please get a copy of Clean Code [1] as we will be starting reviews of it soon.
I have found a reference in that book that pretty clearly describes my dislike for single character variable names. I type that section here. Avoid Mental Mapping [2] Readers shouldn't have to mentally translate your names into other names they already know. This problem generally arises from a choice to use neither problem domain terms nor solution domain terms. This is a problem with single-letter variable names. Certainly a loop counter may be named i or j or k (although never l!) if its scope is very small and no other names can conflict with it. This is because those single-letter names for loop counters are traditional. However, in most other contexts a single-letter name is a poor choice; it's just a place holder that the reader must mentally map to the actual concept. There can be no worse reason for using the name c than because a and b were already taken. In general programmers are pretty smart people. Smart people sometimes like to show off their smarts by demonstrating their mental juggling abilities. After all, if you can reliably remember that r is the lower-cased version of the url with the host and scheme removed, then you must clearly be very smart. One difference between a smart programmer and a professional programmer is that the professional understands that clarity is king. Professionals use their powers for good and write code that others can understand. Sometimes I feel that Go developers are trying to show off how smart they are by preferring single character variable names. This has been beaten (most often verbally) out of most other professional programming groups I have worked with. Saying that "using single character variables is idiomatic Go" just makes me sad, and says to me that "idiomatic Go" is all about being smart and not professional. Tim [1] http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882 [2] page 25, Clean Code -- Juju-dev mailing list Juju-dev@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/juju-dev
