Re: loops [naming variables]
Re: loops [naming variables]
- Subject: Re: loops [naming variables]
- From: has <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 01:56:33 +0000
Arthur J Knapp wrote:
>
> though i'm sure i've done it myself, it's really poor
>
> practice to litter teaching examples with meaningless
>
> variable names, especially in a supposedly
>
> "self-explanatory" language like AppleScript.
>
>
I'm afraid that I cannot agree with that, (at least not in all
>
situations). Look, if you're learning a language for the first
>
time, obviously you need a lot of help with figuring out what is
>
what, but once you've developed even a little bit, long and
>
descriptive variable names can actually get in the way of
>
quickly understanding a simple algorithm.
Whereas non-descriptive variable names can get in the way of understanding
the Big Picture. The knife cuts both ways...:)
>
Now a days, when I read something like:
>
>
repeat with an_incrementing_variable from initial_value to ...
Examples of bad common naming practices please step forward.:)
Me, I'm really bad for stuff like:
repeat with eachItem in theList
Which is barely one step up from 'i' and 'x' in the informative stakes. [1]
(What's in an item? What's the purpose of the list?) What you really want
are variable names like:
repeat with anEmployee in employeeList
or:
repeat with eachVegetable in the vegetableBasket
Both of which provide genuinely useful information about what these
variables are used for. Whereas names like 'theString' or
'incrementing_value' don't tell you anything that you don't already know,
or can't work out from a few seconds grokking the code. Think semantics.
And consistency.
Cheers,
has
[1] Which is not to say that 'i' and 'x' and 'theString' never have their
places, but should probably be used sparingly in circumstances where their
terseness doesn't hinder meaning.
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