Hello again,
As I received some feedback to the message I sent yesterday, I must try to further clarify some things. As I already said in the message, I have not found it possible to scientifically prove that the idea of natural naming is a "good thing". However, in my old thesis, in address http://www.naturalprogramming.com/to_read/doctoral_thesis_of_kari_laitinen.pdf I list on pages 34-38 many good reasons to believe that using natural names might be a "good thing". There I also discuss the difficulties related to experimentation with human subjects, and I even admit that the concept of a natural name is somewhat vague.
It is true that I preach about the use of natural names because I have positive personal experiences about it, but unfortunately I cannot scientifically prove my opinions. The epilogue of my C++ book http://www.oamk.fi/~karil/cppbook/text_samples/why_did_i_write_this_book_epilogue_cppbook.pdf tells about those personal experiences.
I believe that I am not the only person who preaches against the use of abbreviations in computer programs. Some gradual developments suggest that people are finding long and more natural names a "good thing". According to my observations, the names in books about computer programming have become longer during the last decade or so, and the names used in class libraries of such programming languages as Java and C# are quite natural names. In the document "C# Language Specification", available in address http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Ecma-334.pdf I even found the sentence "Do not use abbreviations in identifiers" on page 380.
I wish you a nice weekend, and, if you think that this overcomputerized world is sometimes too hectic, you might calm it down by using the truly slow imaginary computer in address http://www.naturalprogramming.com/IC8/index_for_ic8.html -- Mr. (Dr.) Kari Laitinen Oulu Institute of Technology, Finland http://www.naturalprogramming.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
