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Brendan Tompkins [MVP]

Blog First. Ask Questions Later.

Naming Things

A big part of our jobs as software engineers is to name stuff.  We do it all the time when naming variables, controls database tables, etc.  We all (hopefully) have guidelines and standards we follow when we're doing this kind of naming.  But, sometimes we have to name more abstract functionality, like a feature of an application, for example.  Today I had to come up with a name for the tab that identifies a control that shows user accounts that haven't been used in a while.  This is going to (hopefully) help us keep our active directory store of web site users clean.

Well, it was kind of hard to come up with a good name!  Inactive Accounts made the most sense, grammatically, but is already part of the software vernacular for “accounts made inactive,” and that's not what we wanted to say.  So I went to my trusty thesaurus and looked up Inactive and within a few clicks ended up calling my tab, “Idle Accounts.”  I was pretty happy with this description, but now I'm wondering if there is a more systematic way of naming these abstract things.  There probably have been entire books written on the subject. 

-Brendan



Comments

Darrell said:

# December 16, 2003 7:12 AM

Brendan Tompkins said:

Darrell, saying you were academic was a compliment! But looks like I did follow #6 on the "How to write un-maintainable code." Well, never said I was qualified to do this job. ;)
# December 16, 2003 7:13 AM

Mark said:

Hmm, how about this:

Derelict Accounts, def #1: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=derelict
# December 16, 2003 7:18 AM

Veintitrés Puros said:

Not sure I like your term "Idle" Not that it's not accurate, just that it's not normally used in software. If I saw "Idle" I may think that meant "ready to go"...
# December 18, 2003 2:02 AM

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About Brendan Tompkins

Brendan has been programming with .NET since the first public beta and is owner and operator of Port Technology Services, a consultancy company providing .NET application development services to the Maritime industry. In July, 2007, he was awarded the Microsoft MVP award for ASP.NET. He's also a proud co-founder of failed .COM startup Intrinsigo, and has had a hand in the failure of numerous other businesses. He currently runs CodeBetter.Com and Devlicio.us, and lives in Norfolk, Virgina with his wife Tiara and son Ian.

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