How to name variables

Question

• What rules do you use to name your variables?
• Where are single letter vars allowed?
• How much info do you put in the name?
• How about for exam

Answer 1

In DSLs and other fluent interfaces often variable- and method-name taken together form a lexical entity. For example, I personally like the (admittedly heretic) naming pattern where the verb is put into the variable name rather than the method name. @see 6th Rule of Variable Naming

Also, I like the spartan use of $ as variable name for the main variable of a piece of code. For example, a class that pretty prints a tree structure can use $ for the StringBuffer inst var. @see This is Verbose!

Otherwise I refer to the Programmer's Phrasebook by Einar Hoest. @see http://www.nr.no/~einarwh/phrasebook/