Too Short Too Pithy

In the patterns literature quite a bit of emphasis is placed on short, pithy, meaningful names for patterns. These are intended to be highly suggestive of the forces, resolution and consequences of the pattern. Generally, they are a tag or link or pointer to a large body of text per pattern.

Wiki promotes this idiom in general text, since a sentence, paragraph or page provides context (forces?) for another page connected via some WordsSmashedTogetherLikeSo. On the target page the implications of the context will be expanded upon, maybe some resolutions suggested and consequences explored.

But, the target page title now stands denuded of its original context, which will in general be quite specific, where as the context of a pattern title is probably quite general, and is re-stated within the pattern body.

What was an evocative, representative phrase on the source page may become an inflammatory, provocative one on the target page. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps we should be aware of it, and exercise care, without sacrificing the highly linked nature of Wiki which is one of its strong points.

Maybe one implication of this is to prefer linking back to the source page, with a little supporting text, when a new page is created?

CategoryWiki CategoryNaming