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--- howtos:toolcoding:good_practices [2010/11/08 16:30]
marcus.williams
+++ howtos:toolcoding:good_practices [2010/11/08 17:03]
marcus.williams
@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 Stub: best practices for variable naming, esp. locals FIXME
-In general, variable description modifiers should be used as suffixes, rather than prefixes (e.g. //dwelling unit share// rather than //share of dwelling units//). The same is true for variable names
+It is generally recommended that variable names use the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamelCase|lowerCamelCase]] convention. However, in some cases the use of underscores in conjunction with lowerCamelCase for coding clarity is appropriate (especially for procedures, views and source datasets).
+Variable description modifiers should be used as suffixes, rather than prefixes (e.g. //dwelling unit share// rather than //share of dwelling units//). The same is true for variable names, but for these modifier abbreviations are recommended to keep name lengths manageable (e.g. ''dwellUnitShr''). A table of suggested abbreviations is provided below:
 ^ Descriptor ^ Abbreviation ^
@@ Line 59: / Line 61: @@
 local population_tot[ts] = sum (population[s,ts,a]; dim1=sex, dim2=age)
 </code>
+Using underscores can also improve code readability when dealing with raw datasets, especially in calibrator frameworks (e.g. ''CANSIM_Manitoba_imm_1991_2006'').

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