Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!algor2!jeffrey From: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) Newsgroups: comp.std.c Subject: Re: Reserved names in ANSI C Summary: Please, no numbered variables, I was only kidding Message-ID: <469@algor2.UUCP> Date: 9 Jul 89 00:53:43 GMT References: <13680@haddock.ima.isc.com> <1598@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <875@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <316@mountn.dec.com> <884@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <321@mountn.dec.com> <461@algor2.UUCP> <10496@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> Reply-To: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) Organization: Algorists, Inc., Reston VA Lines: 31 diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond) writes: => jeffrey@algor2.uu.net (Jeffrey Kegler) writes: => => [ Discussion of mine of avoiding name conflicts, along with facetious ] => => [ suggestion variables be numbered in the first six characters for ] => => [ distinctness under ANSI C ] => Names should indeed be numbered: => WM_000_long_descriptive_name => WM_001_another_long_descriptive_name => WM_002_yaldn /* i guess this one wasn't so long :-) */ I don't know about anyone else, but there is no way I would remember variable names like that 10 seconds after I coined them. Also, given a conflict of prefixes (which was a premise of the discussion) use of such names *guarantees* conflicts between the libraries, rather than leaving them merely very likely. Norman has a lot of good things (which I did not quote) to say, and that a competent person like him would advocate a miserable naming system like the above shows the desperation to which the six character limit is going to drive us all. The amount of effort that some projects are going to have to go through to obey the 6 character limit will rewrite many a linker. -- Jeffrey Kegler, President, Algorists, jeffrey@algor2.UU.NET or uunet!algor2!jeffrey 1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090