The Importance of a Good Code Name

Yesterday I attended a meeting with a member of a clients configuration management team. Eventually the topic of “what do you want to call your source repository” came up and we all looked at each other and blinked.

Eventually a neuron in my brain triggered and I realised that this was an opportunity to pick a code name! Several good options were put on the table but for some reason the development team leader baulked at them and opted for something mundane and boring ().

I can never understand why people choose grey names for projects, its their opportunity to put some of their personality into the project, but more importantly a good code name serves several useful purposes. A good code name:

• is a short hand way to refering to the system.
• is great for starting elevator pitches to executive management.
• is a way of avoiding analysis paralysis on namespace naming.

If I have convinced you to create a code-name for your project, here are a few rules that I would stick to for .NET projects:

• Avoid acronyms, they look like crap in namespaces.
• Prefer a single word codename, two word tops.
• Make it easy to search and replace in code.
• Place names, people names and funny words make great code names.

Do you have a code name for your project? If not, make one up and just start refering to the project as that – see how quickly your co-workers catch on.

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