Which is worse: awkwardly long or vague/arbitrary variable names?

Question

I'm programming in C++, but that shouldn't matter.
I'm working on a small chunk of code that is a module for a much, much larger project. Part of my code is to make several hundred histograms and then run some statistics over them.
My dilemma is that there are so many, that naming them is becoming difficult. So, I opt for incredibly long, cumbersome names rather than short arbitrary names. Heck, even I wouldn't know what was going on if I just named them "histo1, histo2." Instead I name them things like "MomentumTimesDeltaPhiEta1" which MIGHT make sense to someone who is working on another part of the project.
And actually, that wasn't a real example. Some of my names are longer than that. Is that normal? I have programmed in C++ for a year, but I'm still not good at programming etiquette, so my code looks clumsy.

Answer 1

Local vars can be short, if you find the need to give further explanation, comment. Try to give meaningful names more for class atributes, interfaces, and where a variable name can help documenting the code itself. E.g. (Pseudo-code, as I don't remeber a lot of C++):
Instead of:
z = sqr(a^2 + b^2)
This is better:
// Pythagorean theorem
z = sqr(a^2 + b^2)
This is even better:
hypotenuse = sqr(catheti_a^2 + catheti_b^2)
If you find yourself using incredible long variable names, it's a signal that your program is too flat, and you need to start refactoring it into a function, class, or using a namespace.
So, e.g:
namespace Geometry {
function Hypotenuse(float a, b) {
return sqr(a^2 + b^2)
The code expresses a lot more meaning, while staying concise.
Edit: I forgot square root
Last edited by freakcode (2008-08-06 19:49:58)