Are long procedure names bad?

[Dare]

The problem is, that then it won't be very readable. Of course by the procedures themselves I can write comments, but everywhere I use them? And every time I want the procedure I need to lookup its name!

Yeah, I was trying to be humorous. Not enough smilies? Or maybe just not funny. * re-reads "how to make people laugh 100% of the time" *

BTW, what do you think of hyphens in proc names?

Dreadful!

You're right! Should have said underscores, not hyphens.

[Kaeru Gaman]

Code: Select all

Procedure WhatIsThis(AndWhyDoICare.q)        ; See techdoc chapter 8, section "WTF IS THIS"

ROFL
LMAO

I often use some cryptical shortened words like BckGrndCol or so...

Of course a Name should be descriptive, but I agree that a Name shouldn't be too long.

a Name should Represent the MainIdea of some Routine.

when you look up codes some months later, you always have to find the basic idea again.
if you got it, some short Names are as descriptive as long sentences.
if you don't get it, you will never make any use of old code ever....

having a concept to shorten words helps....

[Fred]

As you probably guessed it, I love long full name. Because seriously, isn't OpenWindow() much prettier than OpnWnd() ? Programming is like a girl, it needs to be sexy .

[Rings]

... Programming is like a girl, it needs to be sexy .

wrong,
It has to fit in the right place

[Kaeru Gaman]

... Programming is like a girl, it needs to be sexy .

wrong,
It has to fit in the right place

yap... and thats the difference between a GIRL and a WOMAN...

..jokin.. sorry...

[PB]

> I often use some cryptical shortened words like BckGrndCol

That's not very cryptic. Something like BGC might be, though.

Personally, I tend to use combined first letters of words. So for a variable
holding the Desktop height, I'll call it dth. But other times I'll use things like
sysdir$ for the result of GetSystemDirectory(). So yeah, I'm all over the
place (no comments please, Lucifer!).

[gnozal]

From PureFORM source :
FORM_ToolbarBuilder_FillListIconFromToolbarString()

[Derek]

And what about the names of the variables being passed to the procedures.

You might have a procedure with a thirty letter name being passed 5,6 or however many variables, all being 20 letters long. Your one line of code ends up 200 characters wide,

Code: Select all

Procedure.l AddTogetherWhatCouldBeUptoSixNumbers(NumberToAddOne.l,NumberToAddTwo.l,NumberToAddThree.l,NumberToAddFour.l,NumberToAddFive.l,NumberToAddSix.l)

[Trond]

Yes, but look at this:

Code: Select all

Procedure A6(A, B, C, D, E, F)

Is that procedure adding 6 number or doing something with an Audi?

[Kaeru Gaman]

compromise:
I would call it

Code: Select all

Sum6(A1.d, A2.d, A3.d = 0, A4.d = 0, A5.d = 0, A6.d = 0)

(...I would almost never use a proc for doing this, in fact)

[Derek]

So we are all agreed, meaningful but short.

[Trond]

compromise:
I would call it

Code: Select all

Sum6(A1.d, A2.d, A3.d = 0, A4.d = 0, A5.d = 0, A6.d = 0)

(...I would almost never use a proc for doing this, in fact)

That's good when you have only one variable type

[Kaeru Gaman]

> That's good when you have only one variable type

that's on reason why I said

> (...I would almost never use a proc for doing this, in fact)

additionally, the topic is about ProcedureNames, not aboute VariableTypes...

[Trond]

I want to use a procedure so that everywhere it's called I can change what it does:

Code: Select all

Procedure SubtractLoadedFloatFromFloat(Pos.l)
  Protected Ref.s = RefFromPos(Pos)
  Out("FSUBR  dword " + Ref)
EndProcedure

[nco2k]

heh, speaking of cryptic.

you can name your procedure like the crc32 checksum of its original name.

instead ThisProcedureNameIsPrettyLong() you can write 60E19EE1().

c ya,
nco2k