I found where the vanished comments go :-) Yes, Java tends to have rather long class names. Abbreviations are fine if they are reasonably clear or not essential. For example, I just abbreviated "MediaWiki" to "Mw" as a prefix in many class names. This is ok since the most important part of the name is not "Mw" but the thing afterwards. And since it is used in many classes, the abbreviation should be understood quickly by most readers. The problem with MLTV is that it is the most important part of this class name and that it is an abbreviation that we do not use anywhere else. The long name can't be changed now -- people use it even on the mailing list -- so we need to deal with it. Our style guide also discourages any form of abbreviation simply because it makes code less clear (many names for the same thing; more cognitive overhead for someone reading the code).