NESO Academy: Identifiers Best Practices

Welcome to NESO Academy. In this lecture, we explore best practices for using identifiers in C++ programming.

Key Topics

1. Follow Consistent Naming Convention

• Purpose: Improves the maintainability of the code.
• Entities and Conventions:
  • Variables: Use camel case (e.g., userAge).
  • Functions: Follow camel case (e.g., calculateTotal).
  • Constants: Uppercase with underscores (e.g., MAX_SPEED).
  • Classes: Pascal case, first letter of each word capitalized (e.g., BankAccount).
  • Namespaces: Snake case, all lowercase with underscores (e.g., my_utils).

2. Avoid Keywords as Identifiers

• Rule: Keywords have special meanings and must not be used as identifiers.
• Example: double should not be a variable name since it's a reserved keyword.

3. Avoid Using Underscores at the Start

• Explanation: Names starting with an underscore followed by a capital letter or double underscores are reserved for implementation.
• Example: _MyClass is not a good practice.

4. Use Meaningful Names

• Advice: Use descriptive names that reflect the purpose or usage of an entity.
• Example: amount for a variable that stores a monetary value, not a.

5. Avoid Very Long Names

• Guideline: Use descriptive names without being excessively long.
• Example: employeeSalary instead of employeeSalaryInDollarsForTaxCalculation.

Thank you for attending this session on best practices for using identifiers. See you in the next lecture!