With incrementAccountBalance(a, n), it's impossible to tell exactly what each argument is from the function signature alone. Of course I could assume that a = a

With incrementAccountBalance(a, n), it's impossible to tell exactly what each argument is from the function signature alone. Of course I could assume that a = account and n = amount to increment by, but that's nothing more than an assumption, which only invites inevitable bugs. Alternatively I could look at the function body, and try to figure out what's going on, but that's time wasted that could be spent more productively. Further, non-descriptive naming often assumes that the programmer reading and modifying the code has domain-specific knowledge. That might be true of mid level or senior engineers have have been with a particular company for years, but the new grad coming into a financial services company (a field he has no training or familiarity with) will have no idea what "a" or "b" means. I was in that position, and the descriptive naming absolutely would have helped me to learn and become productive with the codebase faster. I'd say that your reasonable middle ground would be the best practice.