Regarding typing lengthy identifiers... You can increase your typing efficiency by making full use of your editor's capabilities. For example, the GNU Emacs editor allows you to expand the prefix of a string (say, a variable name) by typing the first few letters of the string, holding down the Alt key, and typing /. Emacs expands the prefix by looking for matches within the current editing buffer, then other buffers. This may sound awkward at first glance, but it quickly becomes second nature. It has saved me much typing effort through the years, and as a result I don't skimp on variable name length (within reason). See
emacs "dynamic abbrevs" for more info.
