So does anyone have a nice process for coming up with internal application names?
A script for calculating the rate of employee attrition (voluntary departure) in Human Resources was named the "Quantitative Attrition Calculator" or "QuAC" for short. The icon was a duck.
I always had a laugh when they said the name - some got the joke and loved it, which was great... but, even better was the one who "refused to be made a fool of" and would always make a point of saying the letters. (Bless her :) )
Just last year, I had to write some Customer Relationship Management Software - which brought back memories of Quac and I went with the name "Customer Relationship Management Interface" or "CRMI" the logo was a frog and the interface was green. It's not easy being green.
:)
My suggestion: make it as fun as you can.
Because, as with a parachute... we were f*cked if it didn't deploy properly.
A tenuous link, but we still laugh about it now. And because of that, you would never forget what it actually does.
I can't believe no body has made this quote yet either...
"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things" - Phil Karlton
I managed to name a 'reminder system' the 'CRS'. Supposedly that stands for 'company reminder system', but we all know what it really means. ;) (Wow, a Google search doesn't turn that up as an acronym... It starts with 'Can't remember', for those that don't know. ;) )
As always it's a people problem that requires communication and coordination (and until that happens we're stuck with CLOTS, BUGR, and NIPL).
My preferred technique is to come up with a catchy name, then derive a backronym for it that has some kind of connection to the process or problem. For instance, MACRAL could be the market and credit risk analysis library.
For example:
Pyxis -> "Compass"
Orion -> "Hunter"
There's usually a good mapping from the constellation name to a meta-feature of the app, for example, a large bloated app might be called Cetus (the whale).
You should check Wikipedia's list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Wars_planets_(C%E2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_%28The_Culture%29
Perhaps with acronyms for the longer ones e.g.
Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly (SAMWAF)
The Warden - an set of scripts to manage chroot jailed workers
The Middleman - a heavily customized MQ/ESB
The Coxswain - an app that monitors/controls system components
