I think the grandparent's gripe is both valid and contributes to the conversation: it helps remind us that when people without institutional knowledge are encou

I think the grandparent's gripe is both valid and contributes to the conversation: it helps remind us that when people without institutional knowledge are encouraged to get up to speed and contribute to a project (i.e. the whole idea of "community open source"), verbose and logical variable names are valuable. Asserting that size_ is always an objectively terrible name is difficult, as yes, there might be some sort of convention around underscores. However, I have trouble disputing that verbose, plain-English, logical variable names help enhance code quality and reduce barriers to contribution. I'd certainly feel much more comfortable getting up to speed with and contributing to a code base which used more verbose and logical names than say, size_.