Naming Conventions

I l @ ve RuBoard

A few years ago one of us was working on a project where a programmer spent three hours looking for a graphic file. The programmer was working on a registration form and needed a "Submit" button. He asked a designer for the graphic, but neither thought to agree on what the image would be called or where it would be saved, so the designer put it in the same folder she was used to saving images in. The programmer waited an hour and then started to look for the file. After another hour he asked the designer if she had finished the graphic, which she had, but he still didn't ask where the file was and what it was called. The programmer then spent another hour searching through the entire project directory.

After speaking to the designer, we discovered that she was saving these images in a separate directory that the programmer knew nothing about, because she didn't know where else to save them.

This kind of problem can and should be avoided. At the beginning of each project, the team should discuss and agree to a directory structure and file naming conventions. It is even better if you can develop this kind of structure for all projects, making it easy for team members to switch from task to task and from project to project.

Remember to check frequently that the project directories are kept clean and that files are being named correctly.

I l @ ve RuBoard