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A quick tip for better variable names (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Whenever you store a value that has a unit in a variable, config option or CLI switch, include the unit in the name. So:

maxRequestSize => maxRequestSizeBytes
elapsedTime => elapsedSeconds
cacheSize => cacheSizeMB
chargingTime => chargingTimeHours
fileSizeLimit => fileSizeLimitGB
temperatureThreshold => temperatureThresholdCelsius
diskSpace => diskSpaceTerabytes
flightAltitude => flightAltitudeFeet
monitorRefreshRate => monitorRefreshRateHz
serverResponseTimeout => serverResponseTimeoutMs
connectionSpeed => connectionSpeedMbps

EDIT: I know it’s better to use types to represent units. Please don’t write yet another comment about it. You can find my response to that point here: https://programming.dev/comment/219329

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I understand what you mean, and I even agree with it, but just to be a little pedantic, variable names are code, or at least they are more code than comments or docs.

But yes, encoding units into the type system is a much better solution. It doesn't work however for config options, environment variables or CLI switches.

[–] abhibeckert 1 points 1 year ago

It does work - you have a function somewhere that converts your environment variable to the correct type, possibly with a default value, throwing an exception if it's an invalid value (maybe cache size has a minimum of 100MB or the software will be unusable), and has extensive unit tests for the function.