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I know that naming variables is one of the biggest unsolved problems of Computer Science but how would you name a boolean flag to be self explanatory? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by linucs@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

What I mean is: some boolean flags are perfect for the real world phenomenon they are representing e.g. is_light_on makes you understand perfectly that when it is true the light is on and when it is false the light is off.

There are other cases in which if you didn't write the code and you don't read any additional documentation, everything is not clear just by looking at the variable name e.g. is_person_standing, when true it's clear what that means but when false, is the person sitting? Lying? Kneeling?

I'm obviously not talking about cases in which there are more states, boolean would of course not be a good solution in those cases. I'm talking about programs in which there are only two states but it's not obvious, without external knowledge, which ones they are.

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[–] linucs@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Maybe I explained myself poorly, what I was asking is about cases in which there are only two states e.g. standing and sitting and they are equally important so is_person_standing would not be a good name

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

If that sort of distinction is important, it's best practice to eschew the boolean type and instead define an enumerated type in order to remove such ambiguity.

[–] linucs@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago

Makes sense, forget booleans my new best friends are enums

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yup. If a boolean were to be used in this case, it'd be an additional variable that you need to update in addition to Enum stance.

No need to deal with the bool, if you can instead just check if (stance == 'standing ')

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Probably better to use enums instead of strings

[–] HandwovenConsensus@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Couldn't you just add a comment that says that if the variable is false, then the person is sitting?

Or if the programming language supports it, you could add a getter called is_person_sitting that returns !is_person_standing.