Code Advice #16: Don't Encode Symbol Type in Variable Names!

(See intro for a background and caveats on these coding advice blog entries.) I came across a JavaWorld coding-advice article the other day. While the thread which led me there referenced the second point of the article, I couldn't get past the first one where the author argues that ...a reader needs to know which items are local variables, which are fields, and which are method arguments. [...] It's likely best to use a simple naming convention to distinguish between these three cases. I couldn't disagree more! His key argument seems to be that when you are reading code, it's important to know whether something is a field since when you read a method, you might suddenly see a reference to something you haven't seen before. To make his point he shows this graphic: His improved version is here: I have a couple of problems with this. First of all, why encode this information in the symbol name when IDEs will show this information automatically? NetBeans will show fields in greens, and statics in italics - and it will always be right, whereas the code might lie. Just like comments can get out of sync with reality, you could inline a field without remembering to change its name (especially if another developer did it without realizing the meaning of the variable prefix). Or if you get in the habit of seeing an "f" prefix as meaning field, what about local variables that legitimately should start with an f, such as "foc...

Date: June, 16 2009
Url: http://blogs.sun.com/tor/entry/code_advice_15_don_t

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