Guidance in naming awkward objects?
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GlenH7
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Published on 2012-12-19T16:01:28Z
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2012/12/19
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naming
|complexity
I'm modeling a chemical system, and I'm having problems with naming my objects within an enum.
I'm not sure if I should use:
- the atomic formula
- the chemical name
- an abbreviated chemical name.
For example, sulfuric acid is H2SO4 and hydrochloric acid is HCl.
With those two, I would probably just use the atomic formula as they are reasonably common.
However, I have others like sodium hexafluorosilicate which is Na2SiF6.
In that example, the atomic formula isn't as obvious (to me) but the chemical name is hideously long: myEnum.SodiumHexaFluoroSilicate
. I'm not sure how I would be able to safely come up with an abbreviated chemical name that would have a consistent naming pattern.
From a maintenance point of view, which of the options would you prefer to see and why?
Audience for the code will be just programmers, not chemists. If that guides the particulars: I'm using C#; I'm starting with 10 - 20 compounds and would have at most 100 compounds. The enum is to facilitate common calculations - the equation is the same for all compounds but you insert a property of the compound to complete the equation.
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