Naming Conventions

Giving name to Variables and Functions is one of the most important tasks in coding , yet it doesn’t get the attention of many of us . It doesn’t affect out code’s efficiency , but it certainly makes our code more readable and easily understandable . Here is a comprehensive guide about naming conventions , specially in context of JavaScript but i don’t doubt that it is equally helpful in other languages too .

Common Naming Conventions

1. Camel Case

2. Pascal Case

3. Snake Case

4. Kebab Case

Let’s discuss each of them briefly .

camelCase : -

It is a variable naming convention used almost everywhere .

Description : - first word starts with lowercase letter and then every upcoming word starts with Uppercase letter without any space between them .

• Use camelCase for naming variable .

• Use prefix like is , has or can to indicate Boolean .

• To declare a private variable use underscore ( “_” ) as prefix .

• Function name should be prefixed with verb like getData , calculateTotal etc …

Examples :- firstName , phoneNumber , totalSum , isAvailable , isPrime , _accountBalance etc …

Note : - Always prefer meaningful names that clarify the role of variable , avoid starting a name with special characters and Numbers .

PascalCase :-

Description : - Similar to camelCase with a slight difference , every word starts with UpperCase letter including first word .

• Also known as “ Upper Camel Case “

• This is mostly used in namig Classes and Constructor functions , it dfferentiates them from variables and functions .

Examples : - FirstName , PhoneNumber , TotalSum etc …

snake_case :-

Description :- In this naming convention , all the words are written in lowercase and are separated by underscore ( ”_” ) instead of spaces .

• For naming constants UPPER_SNAKE_CASE is widely followed convention . [ upper snake case indicates immutability . ]

• This naming convention and kebab-case convention is widely used for naming files [ Avoid upperCase letter in filenames . ]

Examples : - first_name , phone_number , total_sum , DAYS_IN_A_WEEK etc …

kebab-case :-

Description :- this is almost similar to snake_case , the only thing which differentiate it from snake_case is that in kebab-case we use Hyphen ( ”-” ) instead of underscore ( ”_” ) .

Examples : - first-name , phone-number , total-sum etc …

Concise Table :-

Following these naming conventions ensures readability , consistency , maintainability , aligning with widely accepted community .