[PREV - TECHNOIDAL_RIFFS]    [TOP]

DISTINCT_NAMING

                                          May  5, 2021

  On a typical linux box in the /usr/lib
  directory, you'll find many C libraries
  named things like:

    libgimp-2.0.so.0.800.18

  It's lib, lib, lib everywhere in the lib directory,
  and you might wonder what's with this redundant
  naming convention?

  I think the answer has nothing much to do with the
  use of the file on the system, and everything to do
  with what you call it in conversation.

  There's an image editor named gimp, and it uses a
  C-library, and if it was called just gimp, you
  couldn't say things like "There's a problem with
  gimp, and we traced it back to libgimp."

  "Simplifying" the name on the system would force
  you to go through verbal contortions when trying
  to talk about.

  There's a perl library that used to be popular
  for doing CGI, and it was called CGI.pm, which
  meant you needed to keep saying "dot pee em"
  to make it clear when you meant the library
  and not the thing it's meant to do.

     I was working somewhere where perl libraries
     were all named things like PageLib.pm instead
     of just something like Page.pm, and I had to
     have it pointed out to me that that redundant
     "Lib" naming convention actually made the
     libraries "semantically distinct".  This
     practice actually made a lot of sense, even
     though the ".pm" and the file location
     already would make it clear it's a library.


  Naming something with obvious cues
  about what it is has some advantages,
  even if it seems like they're           Unfortunately, transparent naming
  redundent from some point of view.      like this is difficult in the
                                          modern world with it's globalized
  Why call it "Yo-Yo Magazine"            name-space.
  and not just "Yo-Yo"?
                                            Without looking, you *know*
  Answer: So they'll *know*                 someone is sitting on the domain
  you mean the magazine.                    for yoyo.com, and it's even
                                            likely they've got yoyomagazine
                                            and yoyomag sewn up.




--------
[NEXT - BAD_AND_TRUE]