[userbinator]

> I can either list them or see a list that begins if I just remember a prefix.

I think there is a deeper issue if identifiers are becoming so long that it's hard to remember them. But working with someone else's code is one of the few times I've found autocomplete to be useful, largely because it helps with getting around these issues.

[alkonaut]

Most of the code you have to call is probably part of a library/platform/runtime (e.g. jre, .net, boost, c standard lib). Even in small libraries it is difficult to learn all the type/method names by heart, and before you have used a function the first time, you have to discover/learn it somehow.

Identifiers (e.g. class or method names) don't have to be particularly long before you can screw up something silly like how to CamelCase it, or accidentally swap the order of a 2-argument method.

When I have reasonable domain knowledge, like say I include a vector math library, I can guess the type and method names and use the lib through autocomplete without ever looking at documentation.