can I bottle that?

[cellio]

I am, I am told, abnormally good at naming classes, interfaces, methods, and the like. Other developers routinely come to me for help with naming things they're developing.

Today a developer came to me with a slightly different request. He has decided he's not good at naming, and he thinks he's not the only one, and would I be willing to give a little seminar or something on the how-tos of good naming? (I've already written a document, but it's practical advice and dos/don'ts rather than methodology.)

I'd like to do this. If successful it would improve the code base and give me a little visibility boost. Now I just have to figure out how to tease out the science (methodology) from the art (instinct); I'm guessing the former is teachable in this format and the latter isn't. The art (of anything -- programming, crafts, others) is why internships and apprenticeships exist -- you can't just do a brain dump and go.

Comments

[rectangularcat]

Oh, that would be something I am definitely interested in. I tend to name things with these huge descriptive names or else things like test1, test2, test3 etc...

[jducoeur]

It's a craft that needs to be taught more often than it is -- especially in the modern object-oriented world, names matter hugely in making code maintainable.

There's one catch, though: one of the things that probably gives you strength in this area is vocabulary. Much as in writing, it's useful to have a vast array of words to choose from, so that you can pick the best connotations. And that isn't something that can be readily taught...

[cellio]

Good point. I suspect that in my case the vocabulary isn't actually stellar, but that's offset by my tendency to be extremely precise. Maybe the vocabulary is better than I think, but I know it's hindered by not having studied any classical language. (My verbal SAT was close to 200 points lower than my math one, by the way. I started college as a math geek.)