Functional Programming in Java, 2nd Edition

Provide Good Domain-Specific Parameter Names

We write code once but read and change it many times, sometimes thousands of times. The considerations for the ease and cost of reading the code should outweigh those for writing the code the first time.

You’ve probably seen your share of poor names for lambda parameters. For some reason, x seems to be one of the most favorite bad names for parameters. Other poor choices seem to include p, k, and so on, with the worst offender being l—is it the number 1 or the letter l, the reader may wonder. It’s likely that programmers picked up such practices from an example in a presentation, a book (such as this one), or a blog post. Whereas these short, cryptic names may be suitable for a quick example, unfortunately, ...