Naming Things

Naming things is famously one of Phil Karlton’s two hard problems in computer science. The other part of that maxim, cache invalidation, generally gets a lot more attention, but the more declarative our approaches to software, systems and configuration becomes, the more important it is that our names are clear and helpful.

In this talk we will look at how names are used to compose functionality, the properties of names, and how to choose names that will make our systems easier to use now and in the future.

Talk objectives: Help you think about the behaviours, domains and clarity of the names you use when writing software or building systems, and the effect that has on how easy the result is to work with.

Target audience: Experienced developers in any language.