> For people who believe code isn't literature descriptive names are wasted characters.
Data point: I do read code like books and I can't stand longAndMeaningful variable names. Rather, cut to the chase.
Data point: I do read code like books and I can't stand longAndMeaningful variable names. Rather, cut to the chase.
It takes no time at all to read a longAndMeaningful variable name, and no time at all to work out what it's doing.
Assuming you don't name variables a1 to z256, calling a variable something like "items" makes it context dependent, which is a little too much like building state into the syntax.
Long names provide an extra informal level of type safety. You should be able to see what a variable is doing by looking at it, and you should also be able to see that it provides a clean level of abstraction/composition instead of just being an arbitrary container with a label.
And of course, there's a difference between longAndMeaninful and reallyVeryLongWindedAndExplicitButOhSoMeaninful. And let's not start about the FactoryFactoryBuilderEtc thingies.