4 ms·

Hungarian Notation? Gaah! If I ever have to read a mluspidBlah = ConvertToSomething( mlusptBleah ) again I'll barf. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up

Hungarian Notation? Gaah! If I ever have to read a mluspidBlah = ConvertToSomething( mlusptBleah ) again I'll barf. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.

clawrencewenham 17y ago
I rarely use it myself, but it's been useful in the few cases where I wanted a shorthand to note something about how the data should be used. And I, too, think it's counterproductive when it gets overdone to your example's extent.
tetha 17y ago
do you mean hungarian notation to track types or do you mean hungarian notation to track semantics? If you mean tracking types, I agree. If you mean semantics, I am nowhere near certainity about it being either good or bad. I can certainly see the use of using sInput, uCheckLimit(sInput) and uOutput. It is usually just a single character, and thus, not reading it does not require much effort, so I don't think it is diabolically evil.
- dfranke 17y ago
  I agree that systems Hungarian (tracking types) is a lose. Apps Hungarian (tracking semantics) is a win in languages like Python, but the need for it is a symptom of a wimpy or non-existent static type system. If you can encode a semantic property into a variable name, then you also ought to be able to reify that property into a type and get the type checker to catch your mistakes. Here's the most impressive example of this I've ever seen: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06a.pdf http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06a.pdf
  - tetha 17y ago
    Yes, I very much agree with this. My major problem with type systems is, though, that I have yet to see a static type system which does not get in the way all the time. Haskell is getting close, and I am sure that Haskell will reach the point of allowing pretty much sane python in haskell, which will be impressive and interesting :) Another thing where apps hungarian notation saves me pretty often is in C, with multidimensional arrays and tracking the meaning of each dimension in the array. "rcFoo" (which encodes that it is rcFoo[row][column], added with rIndex or cIndex (resulting in rcFoo[rIndex][cIndex] drastically reduced the number of transposition errors I made, because the order of the indizes is just in plain sight. :) Again, of course, you are right that the right way would be to declare this as Foo :: Array RowIndex * ColumnIndex -> Value.

Hungarian Notation? Gaah! If I ever have to read a mluspidBlah = ConvertToSomething( mlusptBleah ) again I'll barf. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.

clawrencewenham 17y ago

I rarely use it myself, but it's been useful in the few cases where I wanted a shorthand to note something about how the data should be used. And I, too, think it's counterproductive when it gets overdone to your example's extent.

tetha 17y ago

do you mean hungarian notation to track types or do you mean hungarian notation to track semantics? If you mean tracking types, I agree. If you mean semantics, I am nowhere near certainity about it being either good or bad. I can certainly see the use of using sInput, uCheckLimit(sInput) and uOutput. It is usually just a single character, and thus, not reading it does not require much effort, so I don't think it is diabolically evil.

dfranke 17y ago
I agree that systems Hungarian (tracking types) is a lose. Apps Hungarian (tracking semantics) is a win in languages like Python, but the need for it is a symptom of a wimpy or non-existent static type system. If you can encode a semantic property into a variable name, then you also ought to be able to reify that property into a type and get the type checker to catch your mistakes. Here's the most impressive example of this I've ever seen: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06a.pdf http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stevez/papers/LZ06a.pdf
- tetha 17y ago
  Yes, I very much agree with this. My major problem with type systems is, though, that I have yet to see a static type system which does not get in the way all the time. Haskell is getting close, and I am sure that Haskell will reach the point of allowing pretty much sane python in haskell, which will be impressive and interesting :) Another thing where apps hungarian notation saves me pretty often is in C, with multidimensional arrays and tracking the meaning of each dimension in the array. "rcFoo" (which encodes that it is rcFoo[row][column], added with rIndex or cIndex (resulting in rcFoo[rIndex][cIndex] drastically reduced the number of transposition errors I made, because the order of the indizes is just in plain sight. :) Again, of course, you are right that the right way would be to declare this as Foo :: Array RowIndex * ColumnIndex -> Value.