Difference between revisions of "Naming convention (programming)"

Revision as of 08:01, 18 August 2015

In computer programming, a naming convention is a set of rules for choosing the character sequence to be used for identifiers which denote variables, types, functions, and other entities in source code and software documentation.

Reasons for using a naming convention (as opposed to allowing programmers to choose any character sequence) include:

• To reduce the effort needed to read and understand source code
• To enable code reviews be able to focus on more important issues than arguing over syntax and naming standards.
• To enable code quality review tools be able to focus their reporting mainly on significant issues other than syntax and style preferences.
• To enhance source code appearance (for example, by disallowing overly long names or unclear abbreviations).

On the difficulty of naming things

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

-- Phil Karlton

This quote (much-repeated-with-variations) may misquoted or mis-attributed. (See TwoHardThings by Martin Fowler.)

Nonetheless, it expresses fundamental truths:

• Naming things is essential to computer programming

• It's hard to do well

• It's easy to feel that you could do better if you worked harder
  • Thus your work is never really done

See also

• Naming convention
• Variable (computer science)

External links

• Naming convention (programming) @ Wikipedia