Developing Naming Conventions

To have a well-documented system, it is extremely important to create meaningful names for elements such as fields, table occurrences, layouts, and scripts. Each developer has personal ideas about what constitutes a meaningful name . Some developers like to embed metadata into names such as zr_Created_Date.d (where the .d suffix indicates that the field is a date field). Others prefer a simpler approach, with names like CreationDate .

Each project may have unique requirements for naming conventions because of factors such as the complexity of the project, number of developers, developer turnover rate, or perhaps the need to interface with external systems. In general, the more complex your project, or the greater the number of developers involved (either at one time, or across time because of a higher turnover rate), the more essential a consistent naming convention is. A good naming scheme can significantly lessen the amount of time it takes to bring a new developer "up to speed" on the system. The particular style used is less important than consistency throughout each project. Define your standards at the beginning of a project and stick with them.