Re: Another formatting question: Short variable names

head/list

Any time variable names are abbreviated I have to mentally do the
expansion anyway. Why force the extra effort when you're talking about
two characters?

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Bill Venners<bill@...> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> How do people feel about hd for variables that will hold the head of a
> list, ls for list, etc. What about pred for predicate? Seems if there
> are some very commonly used variable names like that it could make
> things more readable, but head and list are just two characters longer
> each, so I question whether that wouldn't make code more readable in
> general.
>
> Dave Astels once said, whatever you would answer when asked what a
> particular variable is, that is what you should name that variable.
> Sometimes that approach can result in long variables that can obscure
> the logic, and I think sometimes an abbreviation makes things more
> readable. But I seem to lean more towards longer more descriptive
> variable names than others in my sphere of peers. When would you
> shorten or abbreviate a variable name, and how short would you go?
>
> Bill
> ----
> Bill Venners
> Artima, Inc.
> http://www.artima.com
>