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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10ad19,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid10ad19,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1073c2,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid1073c2,public X-Google-Thread: 101deb,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid101deb,public X-Google-Thread: 11440e,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid11440e,public X-Google-Thread: 10a146,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid10a146,public X-Google-Thread: 107a89,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid107a89,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-05-24 20:22:34 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!newsfeed.mesh.ad.jp!sjc1.nntp.concentric.net!newsfeed.concentric.net!global-news-master From: Patricia Shanahan Newsgroups: comp.lang.ruby,comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.awk,comp.lang.clarion,comp.lang.java.programmer,comp.lang.pl1,comp.lang.vrml Subject: Re: Long names are doom ? Date: 25 May 2001 03:21:04 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Message-ID: <3B0DD011.88FCD00E@acm.org> References: <3B0DBD4A.82943473@my-deja.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.0.146.14 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ruby:9870 comp.lang.ada:7741 comp.lang.awk:2577 comp.lang.clarion:20298 comp.lang.java.programmer:70564 comp.lang.pl1:624 comp.lang.vrml:3305 Date: 2001-05-25T03:21:04+00:00 List-Id: 00001111 wrote: ... > - "it degrades the legibility of a program to use identifiers that > can't be easily remembered...." ... That is the most important single point, and the reason why long identifiers are a good thing to have available. Abbreviations in identifiers make them less memorable. For a given concept, there is the full name and possibly several ways of abbreviating it, and anyone using it has to remember which to use. I try to avoid them in public names, including class names. Also, a consistent naming system makes names more memorable. Sometimes, very rarely, a consistent naming scheme can lead to a situation in which limiting the name to e.g. 31 characters would require it to either break its naming convention or have some components abbreviated. For example, take a look at the constant names in javax.accessibility.AccessibleContext. Names such as "ACCESSIBLE_TABLE_COLUMN_DESCRIPTION_CHANGED" could be made shorter by either abbreviating or not using a consistent scheme, but doing so would make them harder to remember. In Fortran I suppose it would be called something like ACCTABCOLDESCCHNGE. Patricia