This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Michael Cote. Original Post: On Naming Computers, Chuck Hardin Feed Title: Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc. Feed URL: https://cote.io/feed/ Feed Description: Using Java to get to the ideal state. Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Michael Cote Latest Posts From Cote's Weblog: Coding, Austin, etc.

Thanks to one of Sam's recent entries, I found Chuck "We've upped our standards, now up yours!" Hardin's website. It's always a pleasure to find old friend's websites, esp. when there's interesting readin' on them:

One company I worked at named their workstations after terms from the Hacker Jargon File and their servers after items from Neal Stephenson's books (Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, etc). This was intended to make an unambiguous statement to developers and admins who subscribed to the hacker culture: We have a clue; we too subscribe to the hacker culture. The consistency with which the scheme was applied also sent another message: We control our environment carefully and try to remain consistent with past decisions.

One sign that our new CTO was not attuned to this culture was his unilateral imposition of a new naming scheme which encoded each server's location and function in a unique but unlovely string of letters and digits. Admins could not remember the new names; they resorted to using personal tables to translate the new names to the old. Also, the new scheme was not correctly or consistently applied in several cases. This sent a new message which was more appropriate to the company at that time: We aspire to become a soulless corporation with minimal technical clue. Many of the company's most talented programmers left right around this time. The bad naming scheme did not cause this exodus, but it was, perhaps, a leading indicator of approaching doom.

See the rest of the discusion on naming schemes.