The Left Field

Name games

I have lots of files in my computers. I have lots of folders in my computers. Folders are like files in that they both need names. URLs are like files in that they are names too. I need to name the names. Otherwise, I cannot navigate, I cannot surf. I cannot organize.

Without a name, I cannot put my content in the computer. That is bad. With a name, I can find the content afterwards. That is good. As long as I can remember the name. Names identify things. Identification is the root of all retrieval. Or is it? Hold that thought.

How to name the names? Words. Words are names. I will use words - with some limitations. I need to keep my words short. Otherwise my computers will be unhappy with me. Best to avoid certain characters too. The world of the computer is littered with special characters : periods, colons, ampersands, spaces...

Speaking of limitations, I need to arrange the names so that I do not have too many files in any one folder. If I don't, my computers will be unhappy with me.

Let us pick some words to use. Let us start with those office memos. I could use memo1, memo2 and so on. I could use memoYYYYMMDD_1, memoYYYYMMDD_2 and so on. I could use memo_re_fiscal_rectitute_1, memo_re_fiscal_rectitute_2 and so on. I could use memo_mcgrath_1 or memo_mcgrath_YYMMDDD_1 or...

How to choose? The more descriptive the name, the harder it is to find a way of filing them sensibly. The more numerical (numbers, dates etc) the name, the easier it is to dream up filing strategies but the harder it is to grok what a name means just by looking at them.

Wordy names are hard. Good wordy names are really hard. Good, short, sort-friendly wordy names are fiendishly hard. Wordy names are always trade-offs. Ease of filing, easy of interpretation, ease of typing... Numbers are a different sort of name. I could use numbers. Maybe memo1, memo2 and so on, has a lot to recommend it after all?

Hmmm. Maybe it is just too darned opaque to go with meaningless numbers? I could add meaning but still use numbers? I could allocate number ranges. Memos 1-100 for Mr X memos. Alternatively, memos 1-100 for financial subjects...What happens when a range fills up? memo100a,b and so on. That gets ugly. Better to start with large ranges. But, then file names will be long from day 1, like memo0010001. Why not just ditch the padding on the names? memo1, memo100 etc? Darn, now the natural alphabetic sorting of files and folders is all messed up.

I can code anything with short sets of letters and numbers. Subjects, author names, dates...All I need is a coding scheme. Dewey decimal? Custom taxonomy? ISO 11179? Cutter numbers?

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