I remain ambivalent about cutesy computer jargon. Fatwire Content Server’s cleverly denormalized attribute tables are stupidly named “Mungo Tables,” but I don’t have a better name to suggest. When a CRM software vendor’s presentation mentioned the modular application components they call “Nugglets” I managed not to laugh. Even when I asked them question after question about Nugglets, just to get them to say “Nugglets” again, I kept my guffaws deep inside.
But sometimes naming conventions matter. When a developer working for me named his CSS classes IronMan, Gambit, NickFury, and Thor I had to explain to him that he was making his code no more maintainable than if he had used the similarly non-semantic default classes that a WYSIWYG editor uses: Class1, Class2, Class3, etc.
I don’t know. Maybe I should embrace this practice and name my Java classes JuneCleaver, Mussolini, and CharlizeTheron. But I cannot. I have too much pity for those who came later. Too many painful memories of working with an ASP page called Send_Email_To_Debbie.asp, whose functions were called f1, f2, f3, etc. Too much remembered horror at the Remedy application with tables named t0013445, t200287, and t002443 containing columns called c004332, c005221, c110087 and other things I cannot and must not recall. *shudder* Those are far from cutesy, of course. They are the equivalent of naming your database tables Pazuzu, Humwawa, and Hasturhasturhastur. Not helpful.
Well, I’d better stop my pointless ranting. I have to go look at some Mungo Tables.
