[llvm-dev] RFC: changing variable naming rules in LLVM codebase (original) (raw)

Krzysztof Parzyszek via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Tue Feb 19 06:49:04 PST 2019

On 2/19/2019 4:12 AM, Diana Picus wrote:

+1 for making things accessible to new contributors. Note that this also works for people that aren't new to LLVM per se, but may be new to a given part of the codebase.

The issue here is that neither of us is a new contributor, but we're trying to guess what it would be like for someone new. It may seem that long names make it easier, but when I started with LLVM I actually found the naming convention (and the use of abbreviations) very appealing.

I was recently involved in another project, and the most important thing for me was to identify the logical structure of it: what components it's made of, what's the role of each component, etc. Reading the lines of code in detail was secondary. In my experience, accessibility of a project is directly related to how easy it is to understand what you need to do (conceptually) when you want to implement some changes. In that sense LLVM does really well, but it's more of a function of its design.

I'd be careful not to overestimate the impact of the naming convention on project's accessibility. Barring extreme cases, I'd even suggest that it's one of the easier things to get used to.

-Krzysztof

More information about the llvm-dev mailing list