3 ms·

> Long functions This isn't the worst thing. As long it gets refactored when there is a need for parts of that function to be used in multiple places. > Bad na

> Long functions This isn't the worst thing. As long it gets refactored when there is a need for parts of that function to be used in multiple places. > Bad names (m, k, longWindedNameThatYouCantReallyReadBTWProgrammersDoThatALotToo) I can live with long winded names, while slightly annoying, they at least still help with figuring out what's going on. What I can't stand are one or two letter variable names. They're just so unnecessary. Be mildly descriptive and your code becomes so much easier to follow, compared to alphabet soup. What annoys me about stuff like this is that it just feels like pure laziness and disregard for others. Having done code reviews of data scientists they just don't want to hear it. They adamantly don't care - compared to my software engineer compatriots who would at least sit there and consider it. But this is just my own anecdotal experience.

toufka 10y ago
As a poster above pointed out, a lot of scientific code is an implementation of a mathematical device. And the scientist is trying to make their equations come to life. And in math, many equations are simplified to their variables in order to avoid insane complexity. Many of the scientists actually are thinking in terms of 'S', 't' and 'v', etc. What's the particle's x, y, t coordinates, and how does that get me v, p and l? So that they can write out: v = ((x2 -x1)^2 + (y2 - y1)^2) ^ (1/2) / t rather than: velocity = sqrt(pow((locationX2 - locationX1),2) + pow((locationY2 - locationY1),2)) / duration The latter is AWFUL mathematics, and very real code. (and that is an easy equation. I've had to implement very very complicated calculus into objective-c code and it is absolutely horrid what comes out as 'code', as clean as that code might be. It in no way whatsoever resembles the elegance of the math that birthed it.) When I first started, I naively tried to write math code with the natural Objective-C objects and ended up on the very wrong side of the language. I realize the mistake now, but it's very awkward to ask the (scientist) programmer to go along programming with the language's tutorialed objects, then to tell them, "btw, that 'NSNumber' you have, can't be used as an exponent, along with that 'float' over there. And you can't add NSNumbers and 'integers'. Oh, you want to multiply two NSNumbers together? You want to write an equation with NSNumbers on one line!? Go for it. Oh, and you want to do a cross-product on a matrix? Ha!".
- deleted 10y ago
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occamrazor 10y ago
It is tradition in mathematics (and physics, and maybe other sciences) to use single letter names. A function is f, a variable is x, a parameter is a. These short names are intuitive for the scientist who wrote the code, even if programmers have different conventions.

toufka 10y ago

As a poster above pointed out, a lot of scientific code is an implementation of a mathematical device. And the scientist is trying to make their equations come to life. And in math, many equations are simplified to their variables in order to avoid insane complexity. Many of the scientists actually are thinking in terms of 'S', 't' and 'v', etc. What's the particle's x, y, t coordinates, and how does that get me v, p and l? So that they can write out: v = ((x2 -x1)^2 + (y2 - y1)^2) ^ (1/2) / t rather than: velocity = sqrt(pow((locationX2 - locationX1),2) + pow((locationY2 - locationY1),2)) / duration The latter is AWFUL mathematics, and very real code. (and that is an easy equation. I've had to implement very very complicated calculus into objective-c code and it is absolutely horrid what comes out as 'code', as clean as that code might be. It in no way whatsoever resembles the elegance of the math that birthed it.) When I first started, I naively tried to write math code with the natural Objective-C objects and ended up on the very wrong side of the language. I realize the mistake now, but it's very awkward to ask the (scientist) programmer to go along programming with the language's tutorialed objects, then to tell them, "btw, that 'NSNumber' you have, can't be used as an exponent, along with that 'float' over there. And you can't add NSNumbers and 'integers'. Oh, you want to multiply two NSNumbers together? You want to write an equation with NSNumbers on one line!? Go for it. Oh, and you want to do a cross-product on a matrix? Ha!".

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

occamrazor 10y ago

It is tradition in mathematics (and physics, and maybe other sciences) to use single letter names. A function is f, a variable is x, a parameter is a. These short names are intuitive for the scientist who wrote the code, even if programmers have different conventions.