I try to name things descriptively in simple terms and often end up with NamesAboutThisLong, once they get too long i know the thing is doing too much and some refactoring is needed for readability.
I also avoid letting the reader make assumptions. HasPlayerJumpedRecently is bad. What does recently mean? HasPlayerJumpedInLastTenMs is better, even if it's a bit long...Which highlights that it should probably be refactored into a more flexible value; MsSincePlayerLastJumped.
If you arent assuming a time var wth Ms is milliseconds you aren't doing games dev so that one slides with me.
Wow cool, you just summed up something I’ve found myself doing subconsciously in the past few years. Thanks!
I use to be quite fond of short identifiers, especially ones the make the signs “line up”… until I worked with code long enough that I forgot what I did and had to read it again.
That's a great example. Personally, even beyond gamedev, units are an exception for me - they need to be somewhere, whether in type or in identifier name (or ideally both), or else bad things happen.
But that's what I meant by the epistemological aspect - what is "recently"? Still, "LastTenMs" is arguably even worse - why ten? Did you really mean "since last frame"? Then say "SinceLastFrame". Did you mean "since 2x update time delta"? Then maybe make a PlayerJumpCooldown constant, but then maybe it's not about cooldowns, so... here's when I'd probably say screw this, let's just track MsSincePlayerLastJumped and add a HasPlayerJumpedRecently() -> bool as a helper, with a fat interface comment explaining what "recently" means - and go back to talk with the game designers to give a more specific name for the "recently" thing here.
Point being, this is deceptively hard - doubly so because going all perfectionist about it is also bad.
I admit my example is slightly contrived and LastTen still raises questions re frames and time handling, especially as its so small, oops! Lets pretend i said LastHundred and its using a framerate independent method.
If i were to helperise it with a bool I'd use the intent for the bool, CanPlayerJumpAgain or something (again...contrived example).
I also avoid letting the reader make assumptions. HasPlayerJumpedRecently is bad. What does recently mean? HasPlayerJumpedInLastTenMs is better, even if it's a bit long...Which highlights that it should probably be refactored into a more flexible value; MsSincePlayerLastJumped.
If you arent assuming a time var wth Ms is milliseconds you aren't doing games dev so that one slides with me.