What are some class names that would signal a need for refactoring? [closed]

Answer 1

I think this question is to be seen in the bigger picture of picking the right name for any medium. When my wife asks me to get that something from the closet, how am I supposed to know what closet she means?

Maybe objects of my class do create buttons, so why not call it a ButtonFactory? Maybe that object does manage the lifetime of temporary files, so let's call it TemporaryFileManager.

The problem arises when you don't have enough contextual information. This especially hard when creating reusable components: my TemporaryFileManager may be a subclass of a generic Manager class, and my ButtonFactory may be a special case of WidgetFactory.

As long as the name describes what the thing does in its context I'm alright. And that's what the mentioned article is about.

Answer 2

Utils. Check this Chris Missal's blog entry for why.

Answer 3

Listing bad ideas could take quit awhile, just off the top of my head I could think of a lot of bad names: Reader, Writer, Factory, Item, Timer, Reciever, Sender, etc etc.

Basically, avoid names that give you no context for what the class is or its role in the bigger picture. It doesn't have to be sometime as over the top as IHelpToSendXMLDataToTheServer, but possibly XMLBroadcastUtil wouldnt be terrible. Some people even go as far as adding particular prefex, suffix to class names to designate which module it works with. However, I would argue this is part of the role of the namespace/package.

Answer 4

My least favorite identifiers in general are:

1. Misspelled words. GEM had palette spelled as "pallete" in all its API calls. Maddening.
2. Identifiers where I can't tell if a character is a 1 or an l, or a 0 or an O.
3. George Carlin's seven dirty words.

Answer 5

1) Anything less than 3 chars really gets on my nerves. It really hurts readability, since 3 chars at least usually gives you at least one vowel. Personally, I try to use at least 5 chars.

2) One pet peeve I have is class names ending in class (ex: personClass or buttonClass) since it kind of takes away from the fact that you're making an object, not a class. Making instances of a class similarly I find ok (ex: blueButton, redLabel), since it's easier to read, but the class thing can get really annoying.