[chrismcb]

Variable names sound be succinct . They don't need to be short, but they also shouldn't be essays. I had one coworker who would essentially write everything the function did. Variable names would be 100+ chars. It was impossible. Variable names should be as long as needed , but no longer.

[mattchamb]

I use variable, function and class names as a rough guide on whether I need to refactor. If I name it accurately and the name gets too long, its probably doing too much.