Keith Devens .com

Entry 1508

Names as historical accidents

As I was thinking of breaking my weblog code in order to rename some database fields whose names were annoying me (incremental development is key), I realized that it doesn't matter. They can stay that way forever. There's nothing wrong with things having weird or inconsistent names, as long as it doesn't interfere with the growth or maintenance of the system.

For instance, because of Mozilla's genesis as Netscape Navigator, many of its class names are prefixed with "ns". It shows it's history. Nothing wrong with that. I remember something similar about the Arsdigita system, although I don't seem to have blogged where I read it.

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03:03 (utc-5)