I was always too ashamed to admit I use a thesaurus heavily while writing code. Glad I'm not alone.
How to name things in programming
11–20 of 177 posts
Re: How to name things in programming
#12I agree with everything except abbreviations, but to be honest, I think my worst habit it just trying to use words with the same number of characters for different variables so they align well with monospace font.
e.g.
int num = 42;
int acc = 0;
int n = 42;
int acc = 0;
vector dist; // stands for distances
vector excs; // stands for excesses
Re: How to name things in programming
#13When structuring code, elegance and efficiency always take top priority. However, when naming, my philosophy is always clarity over elegance. for example (in python): def reverseListAndAddOneToEachElement(input_list): Ugly, but clear. I don't even need to write out the full definition you already know exactly what it does.
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Re: How to name things in programming
#14I agree with everything except abbreviations, but to be honest, I think my worst habit it just trying to use words with the same number of characters for different variables so they align well with monospace font. e.g. int num = 42; int acc = 0; instead of; int n = 42; int acc = 0; and it gets worse when things get complicated; vector dist; // stands for distances vector excs; // stands for excesses Does anyone else…
int n = 42;
int acc = 0;
Edit: Install http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/alignment and add this key binding `{ "keys": ["ctrl+shift+a"], "command": "alignment" }`.
Re: How to name things in programming
#15I clicked through the first twenty or so slides, but really I find myself disagreeing completely with him. When you write don't use cliches but the meaning of AbstractConfigProxyFactory is clear and convey more information than anything else.
That naming and technique are anti patterns. As the whole java land.
Re: How to name things in programming
#16My MacBook (with Chrome) does not like this site -- within 5 minutes of opening it and clicking through slides, it got very loud and hot and the battery went down by ~8%.
Do you have an ad blocker?
Re: How to name things in programming
#17I agree with everything except abbreviations, but to be honest, I think my worst habit it just trying to use words with the same number of characters for different variables so they align well with monospace font. e.g. int num = 42; int acc = 0; instead of; int n = 42; int acc = 0; and it gets worse when things get complicated; vector dist; // stands for distances vector excs; // stands for excesses Does anyone else…
I try to pick words with different lengths. They're more visually distinguishable.
Re: How to name things in programming
#18When structuring code, elegance and efficiency always take top priority. However, when naming, my philosophy is always clarity over elegance. for example (in python): def reverseListAndAddOneToEachElement(input_list): Ugly, but clear. I don't even need to write out the full definition you already know exactly what it does.
Here is where "first write good code" applies, at the design level. This function is begging to be two separate, composable functions that each only do one thing.
reverse(addToEach(input_list, 1))
Re: How to name things in programming
#19When structuring code, elegance and efficiency always take top priority. However, when naming, my philosophy is always clarity over elegance. for example (in python): def reverseListAndAddOneToEachElement(input_list): Ugly, but clear. I don't even need to write out the full definition you already know exactly what it does.
When a long name only reflects what the code technically does, then I don't think it adds much above just writing
(map inc (reverse input_list))
There would be added benefit to abstracting it into a separate method when the method name would explain what the code does functionally. Why does it need to be reverse and have one added to each element? Is the input somehow 'wrong' and needs to be corrected? Are we adapting the input list so it can be handled by some reusable code? Is there a previous algorithmic step whose output needs to be slightly tweaked before it can be handled by the next step? In each of these cases, I think there are different names or options better than the technical one.
Re: How to name things in programming
#20When structuring code, elegance and efficiency always take top priority. However, when naming, my philosophy is always clarity over elegance. for example (in python): def reverseListAndAddOneToEachElement(input_list): Ugly, but clear. I don't even need to write out the full definition you already know exactly what it does.
I like the logic of this, but it goes against all books that i've read to keep it short. Why do we need to keep it short?
In this case it's a symptom of poor cohesion and separation of concerns. If you find you're having to give very long names for things, it's worth looking for a way to decompose it into separate things that each do one simple thing. Then more than likely writing the code that composes the separate objects with the right operations will be the perfect substitute for the long name, and it will also be easier to maintain, since you won't have to update both the variable name and the logic that uses it; rewriting the actual expression or logic where it is used will take care of both tasks in one. This is what I usually take from the principle of letting the code itself be your documentation, where reasonable.