Naming

A name is the first thing a reader meets in code, and the thing they read most. A good name tells them what a thing holds, so they don’t scroll back to find out. In one study, 72 developers found defects about 19% faster when names were whole words.

yokoten’s own code follows five rules. The reasons and the sources are in record 0006.

1. Use whole English words. Use only the short forms everyone knows: id, url, pr, ci, env, config, repo, dir, json, html. Don’t delete letters inside a word.
2. Use at most 4 words. There is no limit on characters, because a limit makes people cut words short.
3. Use one letter only for a name that is used within 10 lines and not exported. Use _ only for a parameter you don’t use.
4. Write values and functions in camelCase and types in PascalCase. Use CONSTANT_CASE only for a fixed value at the top of a file. Write an acronym as a word: loadHttpUrl.
5. Start a function with a verb. Start a true/false value with is, has or can. Give one idea one name, in every file.

Instead of	Write	Why
r, used 30 lines later	result	By line 30, the reader has forgotten what r holds.
cfgMgr	configManager	Letters were deleted inside words; the reader must guess them.
processTheUserInputDataNow	parseInput	6 words. “process”, “data” and “now” tell the reader nothing new.
_count	count	The _ adds nothing.
MAX_TRIES, inside a function	maxTries	CONSTANT_CASE says “fixed for the whole file”.
loadHTTPURL	loadHttpUrl	Where does one acronym end and the next start?
valid	isValid	is says it is true or false.
user()	loadUser()	The verb says what the function does.

Short is fine where the reader sees everything at once: for (const n of numbers) in a three-line loop is clear. The further a name travels, the more it must say.

test/repo/architecture.test.ts checks rules 2 and 3, and CONSTANT_CASE inside a function. Each failure says what to change:

src/rules/guards.ts:195: "i" is used for 101 lines. A reader must scroll back to learn what it holds. Name what it is, e.g. "index".

In any project, check --pr notes a one-letter name used far from where it is made, and a name of more than 4 words. It reads only the lines a pull request adds to TypeScript and JavaScript files. A note never fails CI.

Rules 1 and 5 need judgement, so the reviewer checks them.