Francesco Bochicchio wrote:
Heinrich Apfelmus wrote:
Stylistically, one usually uses shorter variable names in Haskell.
<beginner rant> Sometime too short peraphs? At least, this is one of the things that slows down my understanding of code posted on this list on or on various haskell tutorial. In any other language I know, programmers learn to give meaningful names to variable and functions, so when one reads a program, one can use the name to remember what the function does. Then one cames to haskell ... I guess the short names comes from mathematic background, but still ... haskell is already very succint - even more so when you use pointfree programming - and if one also uses names like a,e,i ( look at Array function definitions ), ...
Rant apart, I notice that in my own excercises I tend to shorten names, so maybe there is a reason for that. Nevertheless readability tends to be a big issue in languages used in IT industry, and my feeling is that haskell tends to err on the laconic side of the balance.
The goal is of course to make code readable, that's why I recommend short names. :D Abstraction is the one driving force for very short names. For example, take the definition of foldr foldr f z [] = z foldr f z (x:xs) = f x (foldr f z xs) Since this function is polymorphic, so f , z and the xs can be anything, using more "descriptive" variable names is simply not possible; the key point of fold is its generality. A second, and my main reason for short names, or rather against long names, is that names should be to the point. None of the names newPrimes topPrime doFactors doFilter accurately describe the object they represent. The primes are not "new", the prime is not "on top". The "do" is a prefix does not carry a meaning either, it just conveys that doFactors has something to do with factors . This is best expressed by making doFactors a local definition in the where-block of factors . The name eratosthenesFilter is ok, but since there is no other eratosthenes around, no meaning is lost by shortening it to simply eratosthenes . Not to mention that the conventional term is "sieve", not "filter". The documentation has to elaborate on it anyway. The generality of the name num hints that a single letter name is preferable. The names that I think are great because they are to the point are factors primes
Out of curiosity, there is any reason why you called the auxiliary function 'go' ?
Convention. Often, an auxiliary function that does basically the same thing as the main function factors but with an extra parameter will be named factors' . The apostrophe has the drawback that it's easy to forget, so some people now name such auxiliary functions go instead. Regards, apfelmus -- http://apfelmus.nfshost.com