long identifiers

[Bruce Worden]

hp at vmars.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Holzer) writes:
> [ .... ] [ from Henry Spencer's Ten Commandments... ]
>9.	Thy external identifiers shall be unique in the first six 
>	characters, though this harsh discipline be irksome and the 
>	years of its necessity stretch before thee seemingly without 
>	end, lest thou tear thy hair out and go mad on that fateful 
>	day when thou desirest to make thy program run on an old system.
>
>IMHO you should write your program readable, and long identifiers add a lot
>to readability. Restricting identifier names to 6 characters is a BUG and
>not a FEATURE, and I think you should work around bugs only if you encounter
>them.

I don't think Mr. Spencer is trying to tell you to restrict your identifiers
to six characters, but to make them unique in the first six characters.  (I
think that because that is exactly what he wrote.)  So:
 
        int this_here_function();
 
is okay as long as you don't have 
 
        int this_here_other_function();

in the same program.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Bruce Worden                            bruce at seismo.gps.caltech.edu
252-21 Seismological Laboratory, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125