Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python

4 Choosing Understandable Names

“The two hardest problems in computer science are naming things, cache invalidation, and off-by-one errors.” This classic joke, attributed to Leon Bambrick and based on a quote by Phil Karlton, contains a kernel of truth: it’s hard to come up with good names, formally called identifiers, for variables, functions, classes, and anything else in programming. Concise, descriptive names are important for your program’s readability. But creating names is easier said than done. If you were moving to a new house, labeling all your moving boxes as “Stuff” would be concise but not descriptive. A descriptive name for a ...