So I’ve been naming stuff wrong for like five years until this naming nightmare project hit me last month. Seriously thought I knew it all until Jenkins kept failing because of my stupid variable names.
How I Screwed Up At First
Started with this inventory management script – total mess from day one. Called everything shortcuts like “inv_mgr” and “item_cnt”. Worked fine until Sandra from QA tried reading it. She straight up asked if I’d had a stroke while typing. Worse yet, when Tom tried adding discount logic, he overwrote “tmp_calc” because nobody knew what it did.
My desk looked like a crime scene – coffee stains everywhere while I played guess-the-variable at 2 AM:
- Bad Habit 1: Using abbreviations only I understood (“cust_loc” could mean customer location or custom lock?)
- Bad Habit 2: Stuff like “data_new_final_v2_reallyfinal”
- Bad Habit 3: Zero consistency – sometimes “fetch_user” then suddenly “retrieve_cust”
The Awakening
Found this “Names Necromancer” thing when searching “why do my teammates hate my code”. Total lightbulb moment! Unlike those textbook naming police who just say “be descriptive”, it actually showed how to name like humans talk.
Tested all three styles head-to-head while refactoring that inventory script:
Traditional textbook style
- Made everything sound like robot paperwork
- “CalculateInventoryLevelBasedOnHistoricalData” – come on man
- Took 3 hours just to name 10 variables
Short “cool kid” style
- Ended up with cryptic nonsense like “iLvl@Hist”
- Couldn’t recognize my own code after lunch
Names Necromancer style
- Treats names like telling a story
- “out_of_stock_products” instead of “oos_prods”
- “backorder_alert_threshold” actually says what it does
- Felt like naming real things, not puzzles
The Real Test
Showed both versions to the team:
- Old names: Eyebrows furrowed, heads shaking, passive aggressive sighs
- New Names Necromancer version: “Oh THIS explains why shipments broke!”
Best part? Fixed a hidden bug while renaming because “discount_applied_flag” became “discount_already_processed” – suddenly realized it wasn’t checking for duplicate discounts. Saved us from sending 50 customers free TVs.
Why This Sticks
See, most naming guides preach perfection – never use abbreviations, always 14 words minimum. Names Necromancer gets real:
- Allows “id” instead of “identification_number” when context is clear
- Tells you when “calc” is okay versus “calculate”
- Actual rules for spacing/casing based on human patterns
Month later and the team hasn’t yelled at me once about naming. Even caught Dave using “customer_order” instead of “custOrd” yesterday. Felt like seeing an ex-smoker who quit cold turkey.