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No I don't recommend "Hungarian". I regard "Hungarian" (embedding an abbreviated version of a type in a variable name) a technique that can be useful in untyped languages, but is completely unsuitable for a language that supports generic programming and object-oriented programming - both of which emphasize selection of operations based on the type an arguments (known to the language or to the run-time support). In this case, "building the type of an object into names" simply complicates and minimizes abstraction. To various extent, I have similar problems with every scheme that embeds information about language-technical details (e.g., scope, storage class, syntactic category) into names. I agree that in some cases, building type hints into variable names can be helpful, but in general, and especially as software evolves, this becomes a maintenance hazard and a serious detriment to good code. Avoid it as the plague. So, I don't like naming a variable after its type; what do I like and recommend? Name a variable (function, type, whatever) based on what it is or does. Choose meaningful name; that is, choose names that will help people understand your program. Even you will have problems understanding what your program is supposed to do if you litter it with variables with easy-to-type names like x1, x2, s3, and p7. Abbreviations and acronyms can confuse people, so use them sparingly. Acronyms should be used sparingly. Consider, mtbf, TLA, myw, RTFM, and NBV. They are obvious, but wait a few months and even I will have forgotten at least one.
Short names, such as x and i, are meaningful when used conventionally; that is, x should be a local variable or a parameter and i should be a loop index.
Don't use overly long names; they are hard to type, make lines so long that they don't fit on a screen, and are hard to read quickly. These are probably ok:
partial_sum element_count staple_partition
These are probably too long: the_number_of_elements remaining_free_slots_in_symbol_table
I prefer to use underscores to separate words in an identifier (e.g, element_count) rather than alternatives, such as elementCount and ElementCount. Never use names with all capital letter (e.g., BEGIN_TRANSACTION) because that's conventionally reserved for macros. Even if you don't use macros, someone might have littered your header files with them. Use an initial capital letter for types (e.g., Square and Graph). The C++ language and standard library don't use capital letters, so it's int rather than Int and string rather than String. That way, you can recognize the standard types. Avoid names that are easy to mistype, misread, or confuse. For example
name names nameS
foo f00
fl f1 fI fi
The characters 0, o, O, 1, l, and I are particularly prone to cause trouble. Often, your choice of naming conventions is limited by local style rules. Remember that a maintaining a consistent style is often more important than doing every little detail in the way you think best.
