[MichaelGG]

Naming at the higher level is important (type names). But locals, eh, it's unlikeky that you can comprehend lines without the full context, as you say. And our working memory is limited. So might as well use 1- or 2-char names and keep the code less and thus more easily kept in-head. If this is confusing, there's probably too many locals, so setup new scopes (either by nesting or via separate functions).

[jonahx]

I agree higher level names are far more important.

But I think clarity at the local level is nice, too. Let's say your function takes a name, sanitizes it, and then does some other processing, perhaps storing it. I think this makes the code more immediately clear than 2 character names:

    function storeName(name) {
        safeName = sanitize(name);
        // do other stuff that works with safeName
        //...
    }

[MichaelGG]

In that case it's better to rebind name instead of introducing a new binding - it makes it impossible to misuse it. I hate languages that don't let me rebind (or sometimes, not even shadow).