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From: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: MAJOR ANSI C FLAW (my opinion, of course)
Message-ID: <1516@pdn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Oct-87 12:50:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: pdn.1516
Posted: Tue Oct 13 12:50:11 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Oct-87 06:25:13 EDT
References: <1132@gilsys.UUCP> <8754@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Paradyne Corporation,   Largo FL
Lines: 37
Keywords: external names, length, bogosity to the max
Summary: real life example

In article <8754@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
> > ... If I stick to a 6 char external minimum, my coding
> > style and readability will be severely compromised.  Ever try to provide large
> > numbers of MEANINGFUL identifier names with a 6 char limit????
> 
> Oh, nonsense.  It's a pain, yes, but it's not that hard, unless you belong
> to the school that thinks that "NumberOfCharactersInString" is somehow more
> meaningful than "nchars".  Everything I code has external names unique in
> the first six characters (note that you *can* use more, you just have to
> ensure uniqueness).  Once in a long while it makes me grit my teeth and
> use a less-than-ideal name.  Big deal.

       These types of issues tend to polarize many people into the extremist
camps.  On one hand as Henry pointed out we have those who want unrestricted
length in naming.  Then we have those who take the standard to a rediculous
limit, by keeping everything to a six character limit!!!  I have seen it!!!
Basically, people fall back on their old Fortran programming styles for 
variable names.  A little common sense will tell you that a happy median is
what is called for.  People often react the same way on the issues of style
and comments as well.  Remember too much is often just as bad (and usually
worse) than too little.


       Don't complain about externals differing within the first six characters
I have a case in which the limit is eight and I have some code from the net that
failed to even ensure externals were unique within the first eight!!!!  I'm now
in the process of renaming some variables to get around this.  Thank God this is
not a huge piece of software.  (Don't get me wrong, this is still better than
sitting down and writing the code from scratch and it is only used as a case
study).


-- 
George W. Leach					Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,codas,ucf-cs}!usfvax2!pdn!reggie	Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-2376				P.O. Box 2826
						Largo, FL  34649-2826