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Expanding abbreviations doesn't improve clarity.

E.g. XMLHttpRequest vs ExtensibleMarkupLanguageHypertextTransferProtocolRequest

and ftp_ssl_connect vs FileTransferProtocol_SecureSocketLayer_Connect

or if you want to get really ridiculous:

MysqlndUhConnection::sslSet becomes MyStructuredQueryLanguageNativeDriverUserHandlerConnection::SecureSocketLayerSet

You're misrepresenting his position pretty badly. XMLHttpRequest is a comprehensible name. "MysqlndUhConnection" much less so.

Not being very familiar with PHP, I don't have any pet examples of inconsistent names to offer corrections for that might correspond with what he's actually talking about.

yeah , some people think it's easy to understand what strstr does...

...like everyone who has learned C or its derivatives. It's just part of the vocabulary of the language. You could as well ask "what's a list comprehension" in Python, for example.

Set comprehension is a standard mathematical term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set-builder_notation). List comprehension is a fairly natural name given that.

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