On Fri, 25 Nov 2005, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:
If you need to save patch space, you can load it as a lib. Or if there was a declare/using/import object that would be even better. But I believe that abbreviations in code cause a lot more trouble than they save.
I think it's mostly a matter of choosing appropriate abbreviations.
Because "MAX" is a much more known name than "cyclone", it will be (on
average) more obvious that [max/counter] is meant to be a MAX-compatible
counter. The only problem I see with that particular case is that [max]
already stands for maximum.
"Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do." -Donald Knuth
Yes, but then this prompts a few questions, such as, to which humans are we explaining it? and then, can we underestimate the necessity that something be convenient to write, if we overemphasize the reading?
I, for one, do not have an endless memory for abbreviations. I think I share that trait with the majority of population.
Each word is an abbreviation for something else. People learn new words every day.
However I agree that "cc" would be a fairly opaque abbreviation for "cyclone" especially as "cyclone" doesn't break down into two words with initials C.C. (even if you break it down into "sigh clone" ;-)
BTW I wholeheartedly agree with that saying from Donald, and I want to say that I consider it as an introduction rather than a conclusion -- it opens a whole new set of questions: how do we explain to other human beings what we want a computer to do? how is programming like teaching and how is it different too? and so on...
Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada