Re: Long names are doom ?

[robin <robin_v@bigpond.nospam.com>]

Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> writes: > 
> 
> 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.

or ACC_TAB_COL_DESC_CHNGE

> Patricia