Path: news.cs.au.dk!not-for-mail
From: "Kasper Østerbye" <kasper@cs.au.dk>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta
Subject: One letter names - oh no.
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 09:24:10 +0100
Organization: University of Aarhus, Department of Computer Science (DAIMI)
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A few places in the libraries one letter names are used to make things
brief.
putFormat from formatio is a good example, where a large number if one
letter
names are used.

Normally this is not a problem, though I occasionally run into the problem
of having a variable named e of type integer, and I will do something like

'This is the current value: %i of the attribute: %s' -> putFormat(# e->i;
attr->s #)

Which gives me the cryptic message that I cannot assign my e to i.

Lesson: I no longer uses one letter names.

However, I was scanning a dictionary where the elements and keys were both
text

dic.scanAssociations(# do 'Key: %s is mapped to: %s'-> putFormat(# do k->s;
e->s#) #)

Guess what :-)

Lesson: Someone else should reconsidder the usage of one letter names.

-- Kasper