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Date:      Tue, 23 Jan 2001 01:46:44 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        tech_info@threespace.com (Technical Information)
Cc:        chat@FreeBSD.ORG (FreeBSD Chat)
Subject:   Re: hungarian notation
Message-ID:  <200101230146.SAA07471@usr08.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010122134036.01790960@mail.threespace.com> from "Technical Information" at Jan 22, 2001 01:48:10 PM

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> >|       Hungarian notation is not a sufficient feature to guarantee that
> >| this will happen, but it is a stylistic aid that programers can use
> >
> >The way I understand it, the hungarian notation is most useful for the
> >original writer who hasn't looked at his code for a while, or a maintenance
> >programmer.  When reading the code, rather than flipping back to the
> >declaration block repeatedly, you know what each variable is by its name.
> 
> This savings in time alone is enough to make me think it's worthwhile.
> 
> But it also has the advantage that you get to reuse the same variable name 
> on different types without confusion.  For instance, intBuffer and 
> charBuffer are two completely different (but perhaps related) 
> variables.  This sort of thing becomes very valuable in a language like 
> Visual Basic where a group of different controls may have related function 
> (e.g., lblZipCode, cmdZipCode, and txtZipCode).

OTOH, we could just teach people to choose meaningful variable
names, and comment their code.

I admit that it does act as a barrier to entry for Windows
programmers, since the Microsoft code is rife with that sort
of thing, and they are probably used to it.  On the other hand,
I can read regular code, and I can read Hungariafied code,
while someone who has only been taught about Hungariafied code
is going to have a hard time hacking up bind or sendmail or
FreeBSD or the majority of useful and legacy code out there.

Personally, if I'm given my druthers, I'd like someone I hire
to not be artificially limited in the environments in which
they can be a productive coder.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.


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