4 ms·

> anOverlyLongAndInformationFreeIdentifier Apple has one 82 characters. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationyoungercousin

by rascul 3y ago

> anOverlyLongAndInformationFreeIdentifier Apple has one 82 characters. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelcontactrelationyoungercousinmotherssiblingsdaughterorfatherssistersdaughter https://developer.apple.com/documentation/contacts/cnlabelco...

xyzelement 3y ago
And I would say that’s a good case where the long name is meaningful and necessary. On the other hand when you are dealing with a file pointer in a language that deals with file pointers constantly, “fp” is meaningful enough.
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  CNLabelContactRelationBiaoMei would have been a lot better. People can look up what that means when they need to.
  - xyzelement 3y ago
    I haven't been a dev in a bit, but I'd say between having a longer variable name, and having to crack open the fucking dictionary.... I have a clear preference.
    - a1369209993 3y ago
      Exactly: one option is a single-time, fixed cost (single-time-ever if you write it as: CN_LCR_BiaoMei = 77, // either mother's sibling's daughter or father's sister's daughter // aka female cousin involving at least one female parent ), while the other adds a constant tax on all uses of the variable (well, constant in this case) in perpetuity.
    - School-Cotton 3y ago
      You can apply this logic to anything. If you were working on database software, would you make a variable transactionId or idOfGroupOfStatementsThatMustBeExecutedAtomically ?
      - xyzelement 3y ago
        I was thinking along these lines when I wrote my post... I think there's some domain knowledge that can be expected. A DB dev is probably expected to know what an "id" is. But probably 99.9999999% of devs even working with the address book APIs can't be expected what to know what "BiaoMei" is unless they are Chinese to begin with.
        School-Cotton 3y ago
        If you're working in a domain when you need to care about Chinese kinship relationships then it's just as reasonable to expect you to know what "biao mei" means as it is to expect a DB engineer to know about transactions.
  - xxpor 3y ago
    You have to worry about discoverability the other way: how would I (dumb american) know that's something I should be worried about?
lifthrasiir 3y ago
It is not information-free though. It describes what it actually is, and no one could agree on a shorter and unambiguous term. I personally prefer `CNLabelContactRelationBiaoMei` just in case [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37607801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37607801
jsrcout 3y ago
I once worked with safety critical code that had a variable name 62 characters long, without any extra fluff. It made sense in context. The problem was disambiguating it from the other half-dozen similarly-named, almost as long variables. At times I resorted to diff to verify that two variables were, or were not, the same one. Good times.

by rascul 3y ago

xyzelement 3y ago

And I would say that’s a good case where the long name is meaningful and necessary. On the other hand when you are dealing with a file pointer in a language that deals with file pointers constantly, “fp” is meaningful enough.

School-Cotton 3y ago
CNLabelContactRelationBiaoMei would have been a lot better. People can look up what that means when they need to.
- xyzelement 3y ago
  I haven't been a dev in a bit, but I'd say between having a longer variable name, and having to crack open the fucking dictionary.... I have a clear preference.
  - a1369209993 3y ago
    Exactly: one option is a single-time, fixed cost (single-time-ever if you write it as: CN_LCR_BiaoMei = 77, // either mother's sibling's daughter or father's sister's daughter // aka female cousin involving at least one female parent ), while the other adds a constant tax on all uses of the variable (well, constant in this case) in perpetuity.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    You can apply this logic to anything. If you were working on database software, would you make a variable transactionId or idOfGroupOfStatementsThatMustBeExecutedAtomically ?
    - xyzelement 3y ago
      I was thinking along these lines when I wrote my post... I think there's some domain knowledge that can be expected. A DB dev is probably expected to know what an "id" is. But probably 99.9999999% of devs even working with the address book APIs can't be expected what to know what "BiaoMei" is unless they are Chinese to begin with.
      - School-Cotton 3y ago
        If you're working in a domain when you need to care about Chinese kinship relationships then it's just as reasonable to expect you to know what "biao mei" means as it is to expect a DB engineer to know about transactions.
- xxpor 3y ago
  You have to worry about discoverability the other way: how would I (dumb american) know that's something I should be worried about?

lifthrasiir 3y ago

It is not information-free though. It describes what it actually is, and no one could agree on a shorter and unambiguous term. I personally prefer `CNLabelContactRelationBiaoMei` just in case [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37607801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37607801

jsrcout 3y ago

I once worked with safety critical code that had a variable name 62 characters long, without any extra fluff. It made sense in context. The problem was disambiguating it from the other half-dozen similarly-named, almost as long variables. At times I resorted to diff to verify that two variables were, or were not, the same one. Good times.