Comments on: The importance of naming http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/ Sam Newman's blog Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:42:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Simon Brunning http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-358 Simon Brunning Tue, 18 May 2004 15:33:01 +0000 http://www.magpiebrain.com/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-358 Ooooh! Ooooh! Check out Naming Classes - Do It Once And Do It Right[1]. [1] http://www.hacknot.info/hacknot/action/showEntry?eid=48 Ooooh! Ooooh! Check out Naming Classes - Do It Once And Do It Right[1].

[1] http://www.hacknot.info/hacknot/action/showEntry?eid=48

]]> By: Sam Newman http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-357 Sam Newman Wed, 12 May 2004 13:40:03 +0000 http://www.magpiebrain.com/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-357 Another bugbear of mine - redundant naming. The current project I'm working on has lots of this - things like a class called @Catalogue@ with methods like @catalogueName@, @catalogueItems@ etc. Another bugbear of mine - redundant naming. The current project I’m working on has lots of this - things like a class called @Catalogue@ with methods like @catalogueName@, @catalogueItems@ etc.

]]> By: choy http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-356 choy Wed, 12 May 2004 11:39:52 +0000 http://www.magpiebrain.com/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-356 I agree. Naming is hard. But I have this bad habit of trying to get things perfect before starting things so I've been experimenting with refactoring techniques to keep things moving. I let myself permission to get the name wrong. It's tough for me to do this. I keep convincing myself, "I'll refactor this later." In the name of progress, I plod on. Other approaches I've seen: * nonsense words, e.g. "fargle" * generic naming, e.g. "doit" * frozen naming, "print()" when the function no longer does any printing. One thing that could ease the stress of name changing would be to decouple the method and class names from the implementing methods and classes. Kinda like COM uuids. Or even go farther and have the platform support some sort of interface specification which is a hash of the entire interface including all signatures. Kind of like language support for the automating the Adapter Pattern. hmmm, perhaps something like that is already possible through dynamic proxies ... I agree. Naming is hard. But I have this bad habit of trying to get things perfect before starting things so I’ve been experimenting with refactoring techniques to keep things moving. I let myself permission to get the name wrong. It’s tough for me to do this. I keep convincing myself, “I’ll refactor this later.” In the name of progress, I plod on.

Other approaches I’ve seen:
* nonsense words, e.g. “fargle”
* generic naming, e.g. “doit”
* frozen naming, “print()” when the function no longer does any printing.

One thing that could ease the stress of name changing would be to decouple the method and class names from the implementing methods and classes. Kinda like COM uuids. Or even go farther and have the platform support some sort of interface specification which is a hash of the entire interface including all signatures. Kind of like language support for the automating the Adapter Pattern. hmmm, perhaps something like that is already possible through dynamic proxies …

]]> By: Sam Newman http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-355 Sam Newman Tue, 11 May 2004 10:50:17 +0000 http://www.magpiebrain.com/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-355 I kind of agree. If you have a problem naming something it tends to be either because: * You don't have an adequate vocabulary (fairly rare) * You don't understand what your doing enough to give it a name In the second case, if you don't understand exactly what the code is supposed to do, then why are you doing it? Oh, and a minor woho! - this is the 300th comment... I kind of agree. If you have a problem naming something it tends to be either because:

* You don’t have an adequate vocabulary (fairly rare)
* You don’t understand what your doing enough to give it a name

In the second case, if you don’t understand exactly what the code is supposed to do, then why are you doing it? Oh, and a minor woho! - this is the 300th comment…

]]> By: Simon Brunning http://www.magpiebrain.com/blog/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-354 Simon Brunning Tue, 11 May 2004 10:45:34 +0000 http://www.magpiebrain.com/2004/05/11/the-importance-of-naming/#comment-354 I've long thought that difficulty in naming something accurately and succinctly can be a very good indication that there is a problem with the thing's very existence. A function or method can be very hard to name accurately and succinctly if it does more than one thing, for example – but then, a function that does more than one thing should be split into more than one function. The same applies to classes, variables, you name it. I’ve long thought that difficulty in naming something accurately and succinctly can be a very good indication that there is a problem with the thing’s very existence. A function or method can be very hard to name accurately and succinctly if it does more than one thing, for example – but then, a function that does more than one thing should be split into more than one function. The same applies to classes, variables, you name it.

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