[schrototo]

Generally this is of course good advice, but in Haskell it is common practice to use very short names (e.g. x, x', xs, ...) if the context is clear (which it usually is due to small scope, clear function names, type signature, etc.). This makes code much more concise and readable (it also makes it look very "mathematical").

[skrebbel]

> (it also makes it look very "mathematical")

Has that ever been an advantage?

[psionski]

For people that like math, sure, why not. When implementing mathematical concepts, if you squint at Haskell code you can see the original formulas, which should make it easier for people used to this way of thinking.

EDIT:

I'm not implying it's useful just for programming "math stuff", after all, everything can be reduced to a mathematical problem - including game engines[1], web application frameworks[2], etc.

[1] http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~pls/thesis/munc-thesis.pdf [2] https://github.com/yesodweb/yesod

[vidarh]

And it's probably one of the most significant things limiting adoption of Haskell.

[egeozcan]

Exactly. From my point of view, Haskell is the perfect language which unfortunately comes with the worst naming conventions. (I generally develop in C#, F# and JavaScript)

[psionski]

The naming conventions are fine, but they're very different from C#, F# or JS - it's basically the difference between reading English text and reading formulas (i.e. compositions of weird letters and symbols).

[psionski]

I just want to add something - using Haskell's naming conventions in C# or JS is a crime against humanity. If your function is longer than 5-6 lines and wider than 10-15 characters `xs` or `<|>` are not good names. I think you could get away with it in F#, but it will look weird.

[spiffistan]

Indeed.