First, my message was *defending* most of the short names that someone else was attacking. For the record, I am *far* more worried about the fragility of typical Smalltalk code than I am about method names, which are generally pretty good.
Second, the criterion was implicit but fairly clear: if an abbreviation of any kind is sufficiently common that someone who wants the semantics will recognise the identifier, use it. "ulp" is MORE familiar to people who need it than "unitOfLeastPrecision" (spit), so it is a better name. In the same way, HTTP is a *better* name than HyperTextWhatever (amongst other things because the word is Hypertext, so HyperText violates a Smalltalk style rule that says internal capitals at *word* boundaries) because it is familiar and takes less effort to recognise than the fully spelled out thing. Third, the rule as always is "intention-revealing names". (Another Smalltalk style rule that I did not invent.) #onDNU:do: is a confusing name because when I saw it I expected the first argument to be a signalled exception, not a selector. There is nothing wrong with the DNU bit; if you know you want to catch a DNU you are probably familiar with "DNU" (and don't want to fuss with whether it means Does Not Understand or Did Not Understand). As a particular example from the list, #log or #logarithm are both ambiguous, while #ln is NOT ambiguous (in the context of numbers), making it a better name, Finally, the significant point was not where I live (about 1/1600 of the world's population live here) but when I went to primary school, which was somewhat more than 50 years ago. Twenty years before that, children learned how to calculate square roots by hand. (Cue Four Yorkshiremen. :-)) On 8 May 2018 at 20:00, Norbert Hartl <norb...@hartl.name> wrote: > > > Am 08.05.2018 um 05:15 schrieb Richard O'Keefe <rao...@gmail.com>: > > #gcd: > #lcm: > > These come from elementary (primary school in my day) mathematics. They > are the standard names. > > > You mean where you live? That excludes 90% and more of the world. So when > is a abbreviation ok again? > > Norbert > >
