Code Smell 65 - Variables Named After Types
Names should always indicate role.
TL;DR: Don't name your variables with the accidental type
Problems
Declarative
Design for Change
Coupling to accidental implementation
Solutions
- Rename your variable according to the role.
Sample Code
Wrong
Right
Detection
This is a semantic rule. We can instruct our linters to warn us from using names related to existing classes, types o reserved words since they are too implementative.
Tags
- Declarative
Conclusion
The first name we can across is related to an accidental point of view. It takes time to build a theory on the models we are building using our MAPPERS. Once we get there, we must rename our variables-
Relations
More info
Credits
Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash
This idea came from this tweet
Types are essentially assertions about a program. And I think it’s valuable to have things be as absolutely simple as possible, including not even saying what the types are.
Dan Ingalls
This article is part of the CodeSmell Series.
About the author
I’m a senior software engineer loving clean code, and declarative designs. S.O.L.I.D. and agile methodologies fan.
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Code Smells
In this series, we will see several symptoms and situations that make us doubt the quality of our developments. We will present possible solutions. Most are just clues. They are no hard rules.
