Yes, it seems that this study has many limitations which don't make its results very interesting for our community. I think the original point was that readability *can* be studied rationnally and scientifically, though.
Regards Antoine. On Tue, 1 May 2018 09:00:44 +0200 Jacco van Dorp <j.van.d...@deonet.nl> wrote: > I must say my gut agrees that > really_long_identifier_names_with_a_full_description don't look > readable to me. Perhaps it's my exposure to (py)Qt, but I really like > my classes like ThisName and my methods like thisOne. I also tend to > keep them to three words max (real code from yesterday: > getActiveOutputs(), or at most setAllDigitalOutputs()). I also really > dislike more than 3 or 4 arguments. > > A question for another type of science would be, do I agree with this > study because it agrees with me ? > > It should be noted that the snippets used were short and small. This > might cause a bias towards short identifiers - after all, if you only > got 3 to keep track of it, they're more likely to be distinct enough > compared to when you have 20. I couldn't give a source, but IIRC > people can hold up to around 5 to 7 concepts in their head at one time > - which means that if you got less identifiers than that, you don't > remember the names, but their concepts.(further reading shows this is > supported with their strongest negative correlation - # of identifiers > strongly decreases readability.). Compare it to RAM - it's only big > enough for 5 to 7 identifiers, and after that you have to switch them > out to the harddisk. *nobody* wants to code that does this switching, > and our brains don't like running it either. I think this is one of > the main reasons list/generator comprehensions increase readability so > much. You can get rid of 1 or 2 variable names. > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list > Python-ideas@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
