Comments on: File Naming Tips

By: id

id — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:37:53 +0000

Everyone needs a hug.

By: Michael Clark

Michael Clark — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 05:24:23 +0000

When you use numbers for dates, use yyyymmdd format, so that the filenames will sort next to each other. Then you can find the code you worked on last Spring fairly easily. Or last year. If you do it as mmddyyyy, all of your September articles will be next to each other.

By: Kevin Hale

Kevin Hale — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 01:40:00 +0000

In writing, they’re also known as intercaps, incaps, midcaps and BiCaps. But I think in referene to programming, they’re just CamelCase.

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 17:37:35 +0000

I was actually unaware of that. Thanks for pointing it out.

By: Jeff Walter

Jeff Walter — Wed, 28 Sep 2005 17:00:35 +0000

The common term for the "lowercase/uppercase scheme" you use for function and variable names is "CamelCase". I'm guessing you may have known that, but avoided using the term so as not to confuse the uninitiated.

Cheers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamelCase

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 04:57:28 +0000

Backwards naming. I shall begin to use it right away. Thanks!

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:08:01 +0000

I agree with your "post-add", "post-view" example. That is what I was trying to get across in my first point, but I screwed up and used the capital letters again. It's a bad habit I have to break.

As far as coding goes, I'm still not against capital letters. I would prefer addEmployee() to addemployee() or add_employee(). I'm interested to hear your take on this though.

By: Derek ORgan

Derek ORgan — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:06:52 +0000

I'm totally against increasing your pool of letters by using uppercase. It makes it nearly impossible to guess the name of a function when you know its purpose. There is not argument for this that is reasonable and I can't understand why people advocate it and in some cases suggest it to be the only way. ( I know you are not saying it is the right way I'm just venting)

Also another tip to naming files is to have a prefix for files that are associated to each other by entity.

post-add.php post-edit.php post-view.php post-search.php

Again no uppercase and with this convention you always know were to look. Also entities should always be singular. So 'post' as opposed to 'posts'. This also applies to database naming convention.

I actually use underscore instead of hyphen but I take your point about the shit key and might write it into our code guidelines although i don't think it makes much of a difference. The random uppercase letters does get on my nerves though.

By: Ryan Campbell

Ryan Campbell — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 18:22:49 +0000

I just reread my post and I phrased the last point in a confusing manner. I actually am in favor of lowercase, and against uppercase. I was giving an example of how I incorrectly use uppercase based on my programming habits. Sorry for the confusion - I'll update the post.

As far as underscores go, there are plenty of arguments for and against them. We just happen to be against them. I wouldn't say it is wrong to use them, we just prefer not to.

I agree with your point against weeklyFeature. Your example would become confusing.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:46:20 +0000

The "weeklyFeature" instean of just "feature" is mostly used due to editor limitations. When the tabs only display the filenames, and you have feature/weekly, dates/weekly, and tips/weekly, you have a hard time.

I do not buy your first objection against the underscore. It does need the shift key, so does using uppercase letters as in your final point.

I also do not quite buy your argument about the underscore blending into the link underline. The link is still clickable, and one cut & pastes the linktext and does not transscribe it.

A point against hyphens in filenames might be broken mailclients which break lines on hyphens, if you send the links as plain text.