Re: Hungarian Notation


Jim Cooper wrote:
The point I'm trying to get you to see is that clearly at some point HN gets unmanageable. And for exactly the same reasons that it gets unmanageable it is always somewhat more difficult to read - there is a scale of difficulty from not very to damn near impossible. 

<De-lurking, incredulous that this thread is still running...>

Both, Wayne and myself have fully agreed with you that /at some point/
HN gets unmanageable *if* you let it - so by only using a limited subset
we /don't/ let it get that far! :-P

By the sound of it, both Wayne and myself use a similar system as yourself
(except with abbreviated prefixes as opposed to full suffixes) to represent
broad classifications of type, therefore spiking the guns of complexity.
Therefore, the real argument is about why we use abbreviated prefixes (q.v.)

Presumably you get some perceived value from using HN (although I still don't know what it is - see below) that makes it worth your while doing that. 

There have been a number of people in this thread who have chimed in with
why they use some form of HN. A non-exhaustive summary of these is :

i)
The object inspector can be used, *when appropriate*, to find components :

-->a) You can use the keyboard to do so without needing the mouse
-->b) Components of a similar type are grouped together when using HN
-->c) Multiple non-visual components can sometimes be hard to pick out by eye

ii)
/Some/ people find that browsing code for prefixed names is quicker and easier
than parsing for full variable/component names.

iii)
/Some/ people prefer the way in which their code lines up with prefixes as
opposed to suffixes.

HN *is* harder to read for most people, as I have maintained all along. Just because *your* version is not particularly difficult is not an argument against my point. 

Only if you accept that code is read in the same way that natural language
is read - IMHO, that is very much a moot point but I really don't want to
go down that road of argument for another week. :-)

If, just for the sake of argument, I accepted your argument that my usage
of HN is harder to read than your convention then I would have to weigh up
whether it is /so much/ harder that it would be worth me losing the perceived
benefits I have mentioned. Well, I know already what /my/ answer would be :-P

There is only an argument about what value you get from it, and whether 
> that offsets the extra difficulty. By not having a very complex form of HN,
> you need to get less benefit to make it worthwhile.

Well, that is the whole point. I fully agree about the dangers of the abuse
of HN via ridiculous complexity and therefore choose not to go down that path
whilst retaining the aforementioned benefits that I want. Surely that isn't too
hard for a sensible chap like yourself to get your head around? :-)
.