3 ms·

i like clear and concise naming and don't care too much about how long it is generally if it helps understand what it does without being extraneously verbose. H

i like clear and concise naming and don't care too much about how long it is generally if it helps understand what it does without being extraneously verbose. However, i think there is an argument to be made about how long a single line of code should be before it becomes too hard to read. The example given would be too long for me and i would try to shorten it. In this case probably by implementing some abstraction ;)

Geminidog 6y ago
You claim there is an argument. But you don't actually state your argument. My claim is that you think there is an argument, but there really isn't. That function name can do no real damage to the clarity or structure of the code. You only wish to shorten it because of OCD. The logic here is easily illustrated if I rewrote that function name in English: If my goal was to communicate this to you: A function that finds the x y coordinates of dogs cats and baboons in a picture. This is perfectly ok, but only because it's english. If I tried to write the English as if it was a function. func xy_babboon_cat_dog_detector The above doesn't fly in the English language. But it only works in programming. This is contradictory logic. The question is, if both programming and English are both mediums used for communication why do they both have contradictory styles? The reason is because there is no reason behind it. It's the same reason why people in Japan still use fax machines. Habit and typical human irrationality. When you peel away the layers of your bias you will realize that this contradiction exists because the level of verbosity of my function doesn't actually matter. It doesn't matter in English, and therefore it doesn't really matter in programming. Seriously, didn't you find it strange that you made your point without even stating what your argument was? Typically if you had a clear reason you would give it, if you had examples you would show it, instead you just said an argument existed probably never realizing what that argument actually was. It's not just you. The other commentor just reiterated some points without trying to prove any argument. English has a preferred communication style that is contradictory to the preferred programming communication style even though both mediums can go back and forth between either style without any clear difference. If you self reflect about it, your desire to make my function concise arises more from a feeling and a "emotion." You did not logically deduce your point using evidence... rather you just felt that it needed shortening and that it looks "ugly." Then when I questioned that logic, your mind, without realizing it, began building a logical scaffold around the feeling to support the desire with some rational framework. Such is human nature, and this type of thing happens for all kinds of strange human biases that we posses. Religion, no doubt, is a similar bias... when questioned the religious persons' brain will go through the exact same process that your brain did upon seeing that ugly wordy function name. The question is, by going meta and describing the situation in this way would that help you take a step up above that bias? Or will you continue to build that logical scaffold and try to justify your strange desire to make the function more concise for no reason? Think about this before you reply... did you already honestly have an argument that justified your point? or are you building one right now to respond to me? This is literally as close as I can get to what I'm talking about. There's this strange bias that every human (including me) has when they first learn programming to write concise "elegant" names for no real purpose. It's so strong that sometimes a normal argument can't help the other party reach an epiphany. Hopefully by going meta I can help better illustrate what I'm referring to.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  The argument is that at some point the length of the name is detrimental to readability, in the same way that a run-on sentence is detrimental to the readability of prose. I thought it was quite clear and your 16 paragraph response didn't touch on that at all. Or if you did, it was lost in the noise.
  - Geminidog 6y ago
    Oh I thought it was obvious that you don't want to rename a function after a 300 word paragraph. I didn't realize we need to get into that kind of semantics. My argument is that a sentence long function name of 10 words roughly is still a good function name. There's no hard rule here. Judgement is still qualitative The main point that I was arguing for is that this: find_xy_coordinate_of_dogs_cats_and_baboons_in_picture is a perfectly good function name. The poster I responded to disagrees with me and I was responding to that specifically.
    - pitay 6y ago
      Your original function definition here: def find_xy_coordinate_of_dogs_cats_and_baboons_in_picture(picture: Picture) -> List[XYCoordinates]: Can be made better by turning it into this: def find_dogs_cats_and_baboons(picture: Picture) -> List[XYCoord]: Reasoning: 'xy_coordinate_of_' taken out because XY coordinates are already in the return type. '_in_picture' taken out because the information is already in the 'picture: Picture' parameter. The return type 'List[XYCoordinates]' changed to 'List[XYCoord]' because Coord is well known as an abbreviation for a coordinate and having XY in front of it makes it completely obvious. Removed the 's' from the end of the return type because it is already contained in a list and shouldn't be pluralised. It would be pluralised if you are returning a list of lists of coordinates. There are problems with having huge function names, especially if other programmers need to use the functions you write in their code. One is the amount of screen space needed to use your function, this bites when the could be many functions with long names used in a single expression, long names can be harder to understand in that context. There are reasons that mathematical operators in programming languages are usually one character, things like '+ * - /', it should be obvious the problems people writing in that language would have if the operator names were replaced with things like 'multiply'. Now imagine mathematics being written in a verbose English style, it is not done this way because of all the extra effort it would take to write it, and all the extra effort it would take to understand it.

Geminidog 6y ago

You claim there is an argument. But you don't actually state your argument. My claim is that you think there is an argument, but there really isn't. That function name can do no real damage to the clarity or structure of the code. You only wish to shorten it because of OCD. The logic here is easily illustrated if I rewrote that function name in English: If my goal was to communicate this to you: A function that finds the x y coordinates of dogs cats and baboons in a picture. This is perfectly ok, but only because it's english. If I tried to write the English as if it was a function. func xy_babboon_cat_dog_detector The above doesn't fly in the English language. But it only works in programming. This is contradictory logic. The question is, if both programming and English are both mediums used for communication why do they both have contradictory styles? The reason is because there is no reason behind it. It's the same reason why people in Japan still use fax machines. Habit and typical human irrationality. When you peel away the layers of your bias you will realize that this contradiction exists because the level of verbosity of my function doesn't actually matter. It doesn't matter in English, and therefore it doesn't really matter in programming. Seriously, didn't you find it strange that you made your point without even stating what your argument was? Typically if you had a clear reason you would give it, if you had examples you would show it, instead you just said an argument existed probably never realizing what that argument actually was. It's not just you. The other commentor just reiterated some points without trying to prove any argument. English has a preferred communication style that is contradictory to the preferred programming communication style even though both mediums can go back and forth between either style without any clear difference. If you self reflect about it, your desire to make my function concise arises more from a feeling and a "emotion." You did not logically deduce your point using evidence... rather you just felt that it needed shortening and that it looks "ugly." Then when I questioned that logic, your mind, without realizing it, began building a logical scaffold around the feeling to support the desire with some rational framework. Such is human nature, and this type of thing happens for all kinds of strange human biases that we posses. Religion, no doubt, is a similar bias... when questioned the religious persons' brain will go through the exact same process that your brain did upon seeing that ugly wordy function name. The question is, by going meta and describing the situation in this way would that help you take a step up above that bias? Or will you continue to build that logical scaffold and try to justify your strange desire to make the function more concise for no reason? Think about this before you reply... did you already honestly have an argument that justified your point? or are you building one right now to respond to me? This is literally as close as I can get to what I'm talking about. There's this strange bias that every human (including me) has when they first learn programming to write concise "elegant" names for no real purpose. It's so strong that sometimes a normal argument can't help the other party reach an epiphany. Hopefully by going meta I can help better illustrate what I'm referring to.

throwaway201103 6y ago
The argument is that at some point the length of the name is detrimental to readability, in the same way that a run-on sentence is detrimental to the readability of prose. I thought it was quite clear and your 16 paragraph response didn't touch on that at all. Or if you did, it was lost in the noise.
- Geminidog 6y ago
  Oh I thought it was obvious that you don't want to rename a function after a 300 word paragraph. I didn't realize we need to get into that kind of semantics. My argument is that a sentence long function name of 10 words roughly is still a good function name. There's no hard rule here. Judgement is still qualitative The main point that I was arguing for is that this: find_xy_coordinate_of_dogs_cats_and_baboons_in_picture is a perfectly good function name. The poster I responded to disagrees with me and I was responding to that specifically.
  - pitay 6y ago
    Your original function definition here: def find_xy_coordinate_of_dogs_cats_and_baboons_in_picture(picture: Picture) -> List[XYCoordinates]: Can be made better by turning it into this: def find_dogs_cats_and_baboons(picture: Picture) -> List[XYCoord]: Reasoning: 'xy_coordinate_of_' taken out because XY coordinates are already in the return type. '_in_picture' taken out because the information is already in the 'picture: Picture' parameter. The return type 'List[XYCoordinates]' changed to 'List[XYCoord]' because Coord is well known as an abbreviation for a coordinate and having XY in front of it makes it completely obvious. Removed the 's' from the end of the return type because it is already contained in a list and shouldn't be pluralised. It would be pluralised if you are returning a list of lists of coordinates. There are problems with having huge function names, especially if other programmers need to use the functions you write in their code. One is the amount of screen space needed to use your function, this bites when the could be many functions with long names used in a single expression, long names can be harder to understand in that context. There are reasons that mathematical operators in programming languages are usually one character, things like '+ * - /', it should be obvious the problems people writing in that language would have if the operator names were replaced with things like 'multiply'. Now imagine mathematics being written in a verbose English style, it is not done this way because of all the extra effort it would take to write it, and all the extra effort it would take to understand it.