Names are also a good way to determine how to draw boundaries between data, between code, etc. If you can give something a concise, descriptive, and intuitive name you can usually pull it out into its own function, type, etc. and it will _improve_ readability, since the name adds information and abstracts the implementation well. Names are also a good heuristic for whether your abstractions and boundaries are good. If they require verbose, misleading, or unintuitive names you may need to redraw those boundaries and abstractions.
Just remembering this famous quote :
"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.
-- Phil Karlton"
That, and off-by-one errors ;]
Good points, also I’ve just almost completely let AI handle this. I don’t use it to write code for me yet but I will be lazy and ask it this prompt, “what should I name this variable (or function) that describes this or does this?”
Totally agree. Hardware engineers especially need to learn this. They can't stand using clear variable names; everything needs to be abbreviated to death. No_vwls_allwd.
So infuriating.
SW engineers are better: they reuse already given names. /s
World_street_car_tire_nut_object cause everything is a object..