Should variable names have adjectives before or after the noun? [closed]

Question

I find that I am often a little inconsistent in my naming conventions for variables, and I'm just wondering what people consider to be the best approach. The specific convention I am talking about is when a variable needs to be described by a noun and an adjective, and whether the adjective should come before or after the noun. The question is general across all programming languages, although personally I use C++ and Python.

For example, consider writing a GUI, which has two buttons; one on the right, and one on the left. I now need to create two variables to store them. One option would be to have the adjective before the noun, and call them left_button, and right_button. The other option would be to have the adjective after the noun, and call them button_left, and button_right. With the first case, it makes more sense when reading out loud, because in English you would always place the adjective before the noun. However, with the second case, it helps to structure the data semantically, because button reveals the most information about the variable, and left or right is supplementary information.

So what do you think? Should the adjective come before or after the noun? Or is it entirely subjective?

Answer 1

I try to use noun_adj because it conforms to what I use for functions. When I write functions I tend to use verb_noun_adj, for instance:

def get_button_id():
    """Get id property of button object."""
    pass

This reads to me a bit more clearly that get_id_button because it is not entirely clear what you are getting here: is it getting the button.id or is getting a button called 'id' or maybe even something else? Unless you expand the name to be a bit more clear, like get_id_of_button which may be a bit too verbose for you.

There's probably an equally valid argument against what I'm doing here, but at least I'm being consistent in my madness?