Naming

It was once said by someone named Phil Karlton that there are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

What are some things that must be named?

• variables
• constants
• classes

Some dos and don'ts

• Never abbreviate names
  

  Abbreviation dates to the era of the typewriter, Holorith cards and 80 column-only displays. These limitations no longer exist.

• Never put types into variable names.
  • Eschew ancient Hungarian notation.
• Do add units to variable names unless the variable's type makes this obvious.
  • int secondsDelay
  • Better yet, create meaningful typenames:
    Seconds delay
• Never put types into typenames (classnames, etc.).
  • IAutomobile
  • BaseAutomobile
  • AbstractAutomobile
  • AutomobileImpl might be defendable but wouldn't Toyota, Prius or CommonAutomobile be better?
• Refactor away from creating classes named, Utilities, Utils, etc.
  • Such static helping methods belong either to the object's class they're used on or...
  • individually to a new class (object).