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In what situation is the name 'anospic' acceptable? In a small scope, 'avg' or 'average' would probably read better. In a larger scope, you'd have to remember that it really means 'average_numbers_picked' each time it appears -- why not just use that name?

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Once it's written, I always make the association between 'anospic' and 'average numbers picked' (using that as an example). I try to make the names both human-readable and at least somewhat related (a:average nos:numbers pic:picked).

Keep in mind that I don't do this with client work or anything that might land on the hands of another developer.

You don't always know from the beginning what's going to land on the hands of another developer, and if something (even a personal project) did shift from you to someone else, you're going to not be very highly incentivized to change things then.

There is always another developer - even if it is only some future you. When you pick up that piece of code in three years, hoping to improve or reuse some of it, it will take you three minutes to remember what "anospic" was supposed to mean...

Which is why the variables.txt exists. A quick lookup in good documentation tends to make things clear.

Yes, another level of indirection is always a good way to increase the amount of mental cache misses.

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