From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d1df6bc3799debed X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Nick Roberts" Subject: Re: Not intended for use in medical, Date: 1997/05/14 Message-ID: <01bc5ff7$22677e60$LocalHost@xhv46.dial.pipex.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 241468933 References: <3.0.32.19970423164855.00746db8@mail.4dcomm.com> <5kmek2$9re@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <5ktldo$2pp@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> Organization: UUNet PIPEX server (post doesn't reflect views of UUNet PIPEX) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-05-14T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Kaz Kylheku wrote in article <5ktldo$2pp@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> an example of the use of short identifiers in some C code. I think Kaz' example illustrates quite neatly that there are places where a short identifier is appropriate. Remember, the Ada 95 standard defines the constants 'Pi' and 'e' in Ada.Numerics, and these can hardly be cited as examples of long identifiers! And yet, they are highly appropriate, are they not? I am not impressed by programmers who get religious about these things. Having said that, I would caution against the use of single-letter identifiers where possible, for the extremely pragmatic reason that trying to do a search-and-replace on them (e.g. to change all occurrences of variable 'a' to 'x') a minefield. It's almost always easy to use two letters instead (e.g. 'na' and 'nb' instead of just 'a' and 'b'), and generally makes search-and-replace much less dangerous. If I could have a penny for every time I've fallen foul of that one ... ;-) Nick. (See - I have a short identifier)