It's not a form of obfuscation if there is clear and simple context. Catch(ex) is perfectly fine, and adding 7 letters does nothing but add noise. Similarly "var us = getUsers()" is clear - it's not one u, it's multiple, and makes sense to have a loop like "for u in us".
A better alternative if you find the code is still confusing is to add context by cutting a function up into inner functions. This is why I really hate working in languages that make it difficult to define little closures. In F#, I'll often end up with a couple of 1 or 2 line inner functions and it makes things much easier to read. This simply isn't practical in e.g. C#.
In exported function names and certain class names or modules, sure, a bit of verbosity might help. But inside a function it just make it visually harder to understand and I've rarely found it to be beneficial. There's going to be enough context to load into my brain inside a function accurate, and unfortunately I still subvocalize when reading code and all those extra syllables add up.
Additionally, removing letters means you need to split lines less based on length and focus more on when it makes sense.
A better alternative if you find the code is still confusing is to add context by cutting a function up into inner functions. This is why I really hate working in languages that make it difficult to define little closures. In F#, I'll often end up with a couple of 1 or 2 line inner functions and it makes things much easier to read. This simply isn't practical in e.g. C#.
In exported function names and certain class names or modules, sure, a bit of verbosity might help. But inside a function it just make it visually harder to understand and I've rarely found it to be beneficial. There's going to be enough context to load into my brain inside a function accurate, and unfortunately I still subvocalize when reading code and all those extra syllables add up.
Additionally, removing letters means you need to split lines less based on length and focus more on when it makes sense.