Doubly meaningful variable names

#career #motivation #climate

Header image by Lucian Petrean CC

Giving meaningful names to our functions and variables helps communicate the context around our code.

Inspired by a LinkedIn post from Lowell Bander I recognised another layer of meaning in my code; one that communicates the motivation for why I code.

Here’s a snippet I was working on:

I’ve already posted about why now is the best time to work in the energy industry and it’s nice to have frequent reminders that the work is important. We’re installing solar and avoiding carbon emissions - tonnes of it!

Just as we all prefer different naming conventions, we all find motivation from different places. I hope that you can look at your code today, put aside debates about Hungarian notation, camelCasing or PEP 8 and recognise something which gives you a sense of meaning and purpose.