Subj : Re: How to name variables in a program?
To   : comp.programming
From : Flavius Vespasianus
Date : Sun Jul 24 2005 02:58 am

"SerGioGio" <nospam> wrote in news:4297e636$1@news.starhub.net.sg:

> Hello,
> 
> Having a strong convention for naming your variables in your program
> is an important issue often overlooked.
> Can anyone point me to a good source on the web dealing with this
> issue? 

A lot depends upon what language you are using.

In assembly language, is it common to use some kind of prefix notation to 
indicate the type. A prefix system like this:

MOVL RMS$L_ABC(R1), RMS$B_XYZ (R2)

can point out obvious coding bugs.

Unfortunately, due to the company most notorious for producing buggy 
software, such prefix notations have found their way into other 
programming languages. We've all seen the ridiculous "Hungarian" notation 
that some developers seem to slavishly copy in their C, and C++ code 
where it is both unnecessary and a bad coding practice. (Encapsulation is 
one of the tenants of OO programming. Naming schemes based upon type are 
contrary to that.)

In Object Pascal, the unit name is in the same namespace as the 
declarations within. Therefore, it is common to use the prefix "T" before 
type names to distinguish the unit from the classes within. So there, 
some limited prefixes are necessary.

In a typical C++ environment, you might find a coding standard based upon 
variations of

firstsecond
FirstSecond
secondFirst
FIRSTSECOND
First_Second
first_second
first_Second
FIRST_SECOND

to indicate various programatic elements, such as class, constant, member 
function, member variable.

However, it is worth nothing that all the standard library functions are 
all lowercase names. Thus, any names using uppercase will not conflict.

.