Use of abbreviations in scripts

[Andre Garzia]

Dar,

I use only one abbreviation, which is fld for field, I use so many  
fields in my scripts that typing field all over grows tedious after a  
while so I like using fld and sometimes I use btn but this is seldon  
the case. I think the most important thing on delivering scripts for  
customers is documenting everything with a clear style, this way,  
even with the abbreviations the script will be clear. A script that  
contains many jumps (can I call function calling and message  
passings, jump?) can lead to a higher confusion in the mind of the  
customer than abbreviations.

my styles of coding, if we can really call it a style, is to plan  
what is the desired behaviour for the software, then to code that  
thing till it works, after that, I keep looking at the code removing  
as many lines I can without changing the behaviour I want like making  
repetitive tasks into functions, nesting some functions and the like.  
Thats why my beta software are hundreds lines bigger than my final  
software. Should I call this man-made optmization? As for  
abbreviations, I think they hurt more in variable and control names,  
for example I was building a little loader application for a software  
for me and sivakatirswami, there was this functions to increment a  
scrollbar during download of the modules. When I first coded this, it  
was called sb "download" then reading the script I thought it was  
very confusing and changed it to be scrollbar "download progress  
display", this is way more verbose and it waste lots of seconds  
typing, but this code is shared code and is important to make it clear.

When I see other people code what usually keeps me thinking is the  
names they give to things, I like using that old xTalk variable  
naming best practice with prefix char indicating the type of variable  
and suffix for possible array. I like being verbose in the name of  
important variables and controls. I have a little web editor which  
all revolves around one single field which is an outliner view, this  
field is called with much pomp "The Outliner", which is not the best  
way to call something, but it was so important to the code that I  
felt like doing it.

don't know if I am a true xTalker, card-head, message-passing-junkie,  
but this is how I do stuff.

Andre


On Oct 14, 2006, at 10:10 PM, Dar Scott wrote:

> I am curious.  Is this so the text editor window can be narrower or  
> expressions longer?  Is this kind of a club recognition signal?  Is  
> this easier to type for those who use these.  I suppose I could get  
> used to typing and reading them, so I don't want to make too big of  
> a deal about their being harder to read and type.  What about  
> scripts delivered to a customer?