Common single letter variables in the mapping community?

[Rowlando13]

Are the following single letter variable names understood? I noticed them in some places in the code base:

utils/plot.py

• m (context geofence)
• c (context geofence)
• g (context coordinates / geofence)

[machallboyd]

Would argue that even if they are understood in the community, it's better to spell them out if it's not clear from the context of the code.

For instance:

i = np.argmax([m.distance for m in self.matches if m.road])
cutting_points.append(CuttingPoint(i))

m is clear for the entire scope of the variable. It's a temporary variable to hold values from self.matches.

i isn't as clear and would be better named distance or something similar, especially if it's used again in more places than just the following line.

[Rowlando13]

@nreinicke I agree in principle with @machallboyd . I just wanted some community feedback before I change put in the effort for the utils/plot.py

[nreinicke]

yeah I'm open to renaming the short variables in cases where it would make the code more readable. I agree with @machallboyd in distinguishing between variable scope. In the case of a list comprehension I would favor the short name to keep the syntax compact but we could definitely benefit from renaming those short variables that get used later (like m becoming folium_map or something descriptive like that)

[Rowlando13]

Agreed.

[Rowlando13]

Final answer is that they are not well know enough. Will rename them will paying attention to readability and scope.