Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [46]
Each component of the file name is explained in detail below.
Author initials
The file name starts by showing the user, without opening the file, who created the bits. The file name should usually contain the author’s initials, not the full name, since it’s quicker to type only two characters. (It’s important to fill out every part of the file name with the least amount of typing.) Two characters is the minimum to identify someone, though of course there can be cases—when two users’ initials are identical, for example—when it’s better to use the author’s first or full name.
It’s occasionally helpful to make exceptions to the naming scheme. For example, if a folder contains a bunch of files that I’ve created, and I’m the only person accessing the folder, then typing “mh” at the beginning of every file name would be redundant. In this case, for files I’ve created I replace the author field with either “notes” (if I’m taking notes on a meeting, call, or just have ideas to write at a certain moment), or for an e-mail or file that I’ve sent to someone else, I type “to” and the recipient’s initials.
For example:
NOTES-0923-CALLWPT.TXT WOULD BE NOTES I TOOK DURING A CALL ON SEPTEMBER 23 WITH PT.
TO-JS-0925-COMMENTS.TXT WOULD CONTAIN COMMENTS (PERHAPS AN E-MAIL) THAT I SENT TO JS ON SEPTEMBER 25.
STILL, IT’S BEST TO USE THE NAMING SCHEME CONSISTENTLY AT FIRST, BEFORE EXPLORING EXCEPTIONS.
HYPHEN
Sitting between the author initials and the date is a hyphen. It’s important to use the hyphen—and no other character, like a slash or a space—to separate the parts of the file name. This is because the hyphen is one of the few separators that all major platforms—Macintosh, Windows, Linux, and the Web—can accept in file names without trouble.32 Another character that works across all platforms is the underscore character, the “_”. But that’s harder to type, since it requires holding down the Shift key. The hyphen is easier to type, so it’s the better choice.
Creation date
The date field contains only four digits—two for the month, and two for the day—in “mmdd” format. This raises several possible questions: Why not include the year? What about the European “ddmm” format, with the day coming before the month? Wouldn’t it be more accurate, and sortable, to put the date in year-month-day format? All of these are valid questions, and the short answer is that users should use whatever format is most convenient for them and the people they share files with. The important thing is to include the date in some consistent format. (Some files don’t need a date at all in their file names, as discussed later.)
There is, however, a reason why the year doesn’t show up in the naming scheme: it’s usually not needed. Most projects don’t last more than a year and so the month and day are sufficient. It’s also faster and easier to type the file name without the year digits. (For longer projects, files should be archived in year-folders, as described in the next chapter.)
Incidentally, typing the date doesn’t have to be a chore. A bit lever like Typinator, Typeit4me, or ActiveWords can type the current date on command. (Bit levers are covered in the “other essentials” chapter.)
Finally, it’s important to use two digits for the month—e.g., “01” for January, not “1”. This is so that when the files are sorted by name, all the files authored by the same person will also be sorted by date. For example, the files below are sorted alphabetically:
mh-0103-notes.txt
mh-0512-coverdraft.pdf
mh-1122-revision.pdf
pt-0122-comments.txt
pt-0513-comments.txt
pt-1123-callnotes.txt
All of the files are grouped by author, and because the dates all have four digits, within each group the files are sorted chronologically. (If the January 22 file had a date of “122” instead of “0122”, it wouldn’t be sorted correctly.)
Topic
The topic, like the author initials and date, lets the user know what’s in the file without having to open it. For