Naming things

2023-05-12

The names you give to classes, functions, and variables while programming is vital to a smooth experience, especially when collaborating with others.

Common practices differ among languages, but some general principles to consider when naming things in your code are as follows:

• Reveal your intent
  • If you have to read the code to understand a name, you have failed to reveal your intent
• Parts of speech
  • While exceptions can be made, following these rules generally results in easy to read code
  • Class -> Noun
  • Variable -> Noun
  • Methods
    • Returns boolean -> Predicate (e.g. isEven)
    • Returns non-boolean -> Verb
  • Enum -> Often Adjectives
• The Scope Length Rule
  • Variables
    • The longer the scope of the variable, the longer the name of the variable
    • Variables in short scope should have short names
  • Classes/Functions
    • The longer the scope, the shorter the name
    • The shorter the scope, the longer the name

Note that in Clojure, functions that return booleans are usually named with a question mark at the end like even?