Hi Charles,
<snip>
Your examples are perfect examples of such. I don't think anybody on the list would have looked at RtnVal and read it any other way than ReturnValue.
</snip>
This is a very interesting and common reaction to questions of naming standards in RPG.
We have suffered so long with short names that we have convinced ourselves that it is either a "good" thing or at least we can make a good thing out of it.
It just simply isn't true. We have the ability to code long names for a very good reason - it makes life easier.
For me there are two points to this:
1) Readability - Although you "don't think" anybody on the list would have looked at RtnVal and read it any other way than ReturnValue, I can GUARANTEE that only the intellectually challenged would look at ReturnValue and NOT read it as ReturnValue.
2) Usability - We write our variable, parameter, and procedure names as well as read them. The use of full and descriptive names removes the ambiguity out of its intended use and helps the developer to decide on a suitable name.
Case in point: Variable - holds the Rate Effective Date, logically derived long descriptive name: RateEffectiveDate
Possible other abbreviated variable names: rteeffdat, refdat, rateEffdat, rateEffDate, rteEffDate, etc...
Although there are a very large number of variations of names available when abbreviating a variable name, there is one and only one long descriptive name.
I am responsible for standards in our shop and our standards state clearly that a full descriptive name is required. In the case above, there really is only one name that every developer in our shop would arrive at when forced to use these standards - RateEffectiveDate.
I also totally agree with Mihael. The use of Content Assist in WDSCi / RDi / RDP makes a nonsense of the short-is-quicker rule. Its actually quicker to use the long name because you start typing the long name and Content Assist helps complete it for you. When you are open to the seemingly-infinite variation of abbreviations I wouldn't know whether to start typing Rte, rate, ref, etc... This makes it MUCH HARDER to use Content Assist.
Cheers
Larry Ducie
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