Readability and naming.

[Luís Marques]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Personally, I think variable names should be clearly understandable to a 
> code reviewer, but this doesn't always equate to long names.  I feel 
> that scope, for example, plays a large part in what represents a 
> meaningful name.  Local variables inside a small function are just fine 
> at one or a few letters, and this may actually improve code readability 
> by keeping algorithms compact.  However, the broader the scope is, the 
> longer the names tend to become, in an attempt to provide contextual 
> information.

I agree with Sean here. Still, I advise you to err on the side of making 
it longer. First, because we are already a bit too biased for making it 
terse (those having a C, FORTRAN, etc background). Second because, being 
your own code, you'll tend to make optimistic assumptions about its 
readability. I had that experience recently: I was unsure about the best 
trade off in a particular module, but ended up choosing abbreviated 
versions of some variables. Two weeks later, when I had to read my own 
code, I found the full names were more clear, because I no longer 
remembered all the details which had biased me when I wrote it ("of 
course I'll understand that!").

Also, I think the following is an unneeded assault on elegance:

from: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/

"class CmdLin"

CmdLine is not that longer to write. This is *the* sample D code, on the 
language's frontpage. Perhaps some will find "CommandLine" too long, but 
surely CmdLine is quite reasonable.

Best regards,
Luís