Naming in the world of development is especially hard, though, given that it’s like the washing machine vs dishwasher example on steroids! New abstractions are created at a furious rate in most software projects. Imagine new white goods were being invented and going mainstream once a week. How would we keep the nomenclature comprehensible?

One solution is offered by domain-driven design (DDD). In DDD we are encouraged to define a, so called, ubiquitous language. This is the language spoken by the users of your applications. This language would include a curated list of defined terms. Any duplication or drift in meaning would be identified and corrective action taken in code. In other words, DDD proponents would advocate for a clothes washer.

Some names start off perfectly adequate but drift as the named thing evolves. I’d wager that, as a proportion of the time spent using the device, very few people spend much time using their phone to make phone calls. Visual language suffers from the same effect.  Who now would pick an icon representing a 3.5-inch floppy disk to represent the operation of saving your work in an application? 

Do you have any naming anomalies to add to the list?

In my next blog post, I’ll explore further some of the core ideas of DDD.

If you have any thoughts on anything covered in this blog, get in touch.