On naming things

Ash says the two hardest things in computer science are naming and cache locking. Today, I saw two examples of how names make concepts come alive.

First, the brilliant Fractals Of Change comments:

Over one weekend in May of 1997 David Isenberg, who then worked at AT&T Labs Research (nee Bell labs), wrote a paper called The Rise of The Stupid Network which explained (and still explains) with breathtaking simplicity why the Internet is superior to the “intelligent networks” favored by traditional telcos and was about to crater the value of these expensive networks. ... A copy of the paper found its way to me (I was sort of the Internet guy among AT&T VPs) and I thought the paper was brilliant: it gave words and names and reasons to what us Internet enthusiasts sort of thought.

Second, Alex Russell says on Ajax:

Ajax was coined to describe background request/response data transfer. Many of us had worked on solutions to do exactly this, but it wasn’t until a simple name and accompanying description were provided that it was possible for people not directly building applications to describe what it was they liked about it. Common terminology acts not only as a shortcut in discussions between technical folks, but also as a bridge for those who may not be able to give a technical rundown of exactly how it works.

If I'd still been doing Web dev in the early 200x's, I'm certain I'd have been in the "us" who worked on Ajaxy solutions, and sure that no-one around me would have "got it". Lotus Notes suffered from a similar terminology problem: aficionados described it with terms that were unfamiliar or offensive to IT departments, who consequently put it in a box (that was invariably placed in a safe, padlocked twice, encased in concrete and sunk at the bottom of the C).

So let Alex's comments be a lesson to those know-it-alls who think nothing matters except the raw techniques and code:

Comet may be a new name for an old set of concepts wrapped in some pretty grotty hacks, but that in no way diminishes the market impact it will have (and is already having).