But don't people at your place just put numbers in front of things anyway? I've seen this literally everywhere I've worked. Not universally, but common enough that it no longer strikes me as unusual.
They start at `01` and increment. I still remember back in 2007 at the National Australia Bank, the WinXP deployment project stored its DNS designs in folder `53`.
My theory is that people do this because the alphabet is unreliable. What was the name of that DNS designs folder? I don't remember. But it could have been any one of a bunch of things: DNS, Designs (DNS), Dynamic Name System, so on. That choice is essentially arbitrary because we have this language full of synonyms. And so how do you remember it and the dozens of other folders that you use regularly? You don't!
Numbers lock things in place. `53` will always be there. The person who created that doesn't give a hoot about `52` or `54`. They just know that their stuff is at `53`.
Adding a whole bunch of new folders that start with 'B' would have messed up the spatial placement of our `53` folder, but now that's not an issue. `53` is always exactly where it was, and muscle memory can develop.
I dunno. I haven't done the studies. I'd love to! But this is a pattern that I see over and over. To dismiss it as 'wrong' ignores the fact that people are doing this for a reason. There's something natural about it.
They start at `01` and increment. I still remember back in 2007 at the National Australia Bank, the WinXP deployment project stored its DNS designs in folder `53`.
My theory is that people do this because the alphabet is unreliable. What was the name of that DNS designs folder? I don't remember. But it could have been any one of a bunch of things: DNS, Designs (DNS), Dynamic Name System, so on. That choice is essentially arbitrary because we have this language full of synonyms. And so how do you remember it and the dozens of other folders that you use regularly? You don't!
Numbers lock things in place. `53` will always be there. The person who created that doesn't give a hoot about `52` or `54`. They just know that their stuff is at `53`.
Adding a whole bunch of new folders that start with 'B' would have messed up the spatial placement of our `53` folder, but now that's not an issue. `53` is always exactly where it was, and muscle memory can develop.
I dunno. I haven't done the studies. I'd love to! But this is a pattern that I see over and over. To dismiss it as 'wrong' ignores the fact that people are doing this for a reason. There's something natural about it.