Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ihlts!lied
From: lied@ihlts.UUCP (Bob Lied)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: The Naming of Arrays
Message-ID: <743@ihlts.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 7-Jun-86 22:13:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlts.743
Posted: Sat Jun  7 22:13:45 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Jun-86 00:53:26 EDT
References: <587@tjalk.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 23

You're right: it's not the most important thing in the
world, but I agree that naming is sometimes annoying in
hindsight. I partially solved the problem for myself by
taking on a few conventions:

0)  Give up trying to make it sound like natural language.
It isn't.  It may sound funny when you read it; so what.

1)  Nothing is ever plural.  This also goes for file
and directory names.  Saves hundreds of valuable milliseconds
every day wondering whether there should be an 's',
and often saves one of those precious 8 (or 14) characters.
So what if it doesn't read like English?

2)  Very local variables (a small function or a block)
get single letter names:  struct word w

3)  Instances of structures always get the shortest
reasonable names, preferably one character.  After all
the dots and ->'s are added, they always end up too
long anyway.

	Bob Lied	ihnp4!ihlts!lied