Long names are doom ?

[Rainy]

On Sat, 26 May 2001 08:35:38 -0700, Glen Starchman <glen at enabledventures.com> wrote:
> Rainy wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, 26 May 2001 00:51:42 -0600, Andrew Dalke <dalke at acm.org> wrote:
>> > Nick Perkins wrote:
>> >>what if you wanted to name, say, a function
>> >>with a string so that you could include spaces?
>> >  ...
>> >>...just a silly idea.
>> >>ok, i'll go to bed now.
>> >
>> > Something like that came up last year, with
>> > the proposed syntax of
>> >
>> >   obj."attribute with spaces in the name"
>> >
>> > As I recall, people thought it interesting, but that's
>> > as far as it went.  I don't think there were any
>> > definite implementation reasons against it.  But no one
>> > could get a solid reason to have it, and for those
>> > few cases where that functionality was needed
>> >
>> >   getattr(obj, "attribute with spaces in the name")
>> >
>> > works.
>> >
>> > BTW, in your proposal,
>> >   fn['my special function']()
>> >
>> > the [] syntax could be confused with list/dict lookup.
>> >
>> >                     Andrew
>> >                     dalke at acm.org
>> 
>> What's the big problem with implementing this:
>> 
>> my varibable = 2
>> 
>> my result = my variable * 3
>> 
>> def my function(some variable):
>>     return some variable / 8
>> 
>> ?
>> 
>> I know there is something seriously wrong with this, because otherwise
>> it'd be done already in some language (and afaik it isn't). So what
>> exactly is wrong? I'm asking because typing up a name with underscores
>> feels_awkward and separatingByCapitalLettersLooksAwkward. I can't remember
>> any situation where a space is needed to separate one variable from another,
>> and syntax characters aren't allowed in variable names.. 
> 
> Not with Python, but in most shell variants:
> 
> for x in $var1 $var2 $var3...
> 
> is valid.

Yeah, I can easily see why in most shells it'd be a bad idea.. but in
python?

> 
> Besides, whitespace in variable names? C'mon! That's the opposite
> extreme of Fortran (older versions) with no whitespace.

The only golden rule I know says that there are no golden rules, not that
all extremes are bad :-)

> 
> If you want to prefix a variable name with 'my ', just use Perl. ;-)

Well, that was just to demonstrate that a space is in there. I don't think
naming a variable my_var or myVar or my var is a good idea.

> 
> 
> What am I missing
>> here? :-)
>> 
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> 
>> --
>> Lucifer Sam Siam cat
>> Always sitting by your side
>> Always by your side
>> That cat's something I can't explain
>>         - Syd


-- 
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        - Jim