This sounds interesting. Alas, I cannot read it right now, since my iPhone lacks native support for viewing PostScript files (something which macOS has.) If only there was a PDF or HTML version, or if my iPhone could display .ps (there probably is some app, I haven't looked.)

UPDATE: found a free web based service to convert it to PDF for me, docspal.com

It is quite interesting to look how some of those recommendations change in the industry over time (to a degree you can make such general statements). For example in Clean Code, Robert Martin argues against the idea of encoding type information into names (e.g., Hungarian notation suggested here) given that this can readily provided by IDE instead and enforced by strongly and static type system. Though, he _does_ recommend encoding information about arguments into function names.

It seems that this recommendation to a large degree is a reflection of tools used. Nowadays it wouldn't be completely unusual for an IDE to show formal parameter name along with actual argument values passed, thus obviating the need to encode this information into the function name in the first place.

Idea of robust data structures is very interesting. While storing additional information to detect potential misuse of API, like concurrent modification or iterator invalidation is common in other context, the idea of using it to correct the data structure is not the first thing that comes to mind.

And at the same time everyone in the JavaScript world is comfortable with using some hungarian-ish notation. $ is for jquery objects, Capitals are for classes, lowercase for instances, camelCase for methods and properties, UPPERCASE for constants, underscore_case for API values, snake-case for CSS classes. To name a few common conventions.

None of this is enforced at the tools level.

Hungarian notation IIRC is specifically a 1-char-prefix of an argument names indicating type, ie. `goToWork (bTrth, sTxt, iCnt)` -- ie to reinforce type expectations -- rather than such casing conventions..

http://foldoc.org/hungarian%20notation

Yes, that's more-or-less correct.

The prefix wouldn't necessarily be only a single character. For example, using a "p" prefix for pointer values was a common convention in Microsoft ecosystem projects where Hungarian notation was probably most popular. Thus a pointer-to-char (char*) parameter might be prefixed with "pc".

But yes, the fundamental idea was to convey information about the type of the variable as part of its name. That convention has mostly died out today, probably due to a combination of IDEs being used routinely in the ecosystem where the notation was most popular, and more recently due to modern languages having better type systems that enforce the rules objectively instead of relying on a convention.

Ironically, with the popularity of dynamically typed languages today, we sometimes seem to have regressed to a point where interfaces to functions aren't always clear, and lots of avoidable bugs creep in due to passing incorrect types of data around. The emphasis on rapid evolution and ad-hoc/organic design we see with a lot of "agile" development processes isn't always helpful either. Put those together, and you almost have the complete opposite of the systematic design and robust processes advocated in the slides here.

But yes, the fundamental idea was to convey information about the type of the variable as part of its name.

No.

There are two types of Hungarian Notation.

The original one ("apps hungarian"), which made sense and sometimes still makes sense. Here you would assign a meaning to a prefix. For example, if you're writing MS Word a variable named "sWidth" might be the width of something in pixels on the screen (s), while "pWidth" might be the same width, but in logical units (say pt) on the page. Then you could have a function ptos, and it's easy to see whether variables were used correctly in computations - you can't mix screen-space and page-space coordinates without conversion.

This made a lot of sense, because either variable would likely just be an "int".

Similarly in a Python Webapp one might write "us_name" where us means UnSanitized. So before passing that anywhere else you know you need to sanitize it. See a "us_" variable somewhere that isn't a call to a sanitizer? Probably a bug!

Then there's that other one, "system hungarian", which is the stupid thing everyone knows with stuff like lpcstrWindowName.

All of your examples are still type information. They are more specific than the types provided by a basic C-style type system, but that's the point.

We can easily distinguish between the two by calling them units.

It's not necessarily just units, though that's one useful example. Types could also include things like whether a text string has been escaped in a certain way, whether data has come from a trusted or untrusted source, and countless other reasons you might want to ensure you don't use a value with a certain property in the wrong way.

In modern languages where defining custom types and enforcing their use is easier, there is less need to distinguish these properties by convention. Twenty years ago, when we were doing more development with languages in the C family that don't have very powerful systems, it was a different story, and so naming conventions went some way to helping keep track of what data you were really passing around beyond just "It's an int" and the like.

It is quite interesting to look how some of those recommendations change in the industry over time [...]. For example in Clean Code, Robert Martin argues against the idea of [...]

Martin claimed in the very same book several ridiculous things (like not documenting short functions, which makes autogenerated documentation look awful; apparently Martin haven't ever used documentation generators before writing the book).

It's hard to take Martin's recommendations as coming from "the industry".

There's plenty one could reasonably criticise about Clean Code and some of Martin's other work, particularly in the context of building robust systems, but he is not wrong that Hungarian notation is mostly obsolete given modern programming languages and tool chains.

It's funny to see how well this has stood the test of time; these concepts are still perfectly valid today (although wuch is right that Hungarian has fallen out of favour.)

More than valid: much of it is implemented in both NonStop and Stratus servers with amazing levels of uptime. Been waiting forever for FOSS OS's to copy some of these techniques with a limited config of HW redundancy. Now you can even get inexpensive, PowerPC boards that support lockstep with 1+GHz processors. That's for embedded use.

Embedded and FLOSS appear to be rather different worlds, I'm afraid. There's a gcc toolchain running through both, but...