While I do agree with you that names like "m-1ab" may seem cryptic, I don't think that is a bad thing. If you look at MLCad's "Activate Model" screen, you'll notice that the "Name" column is quite narrow, and although you can widen it temporarily, the next time you open it, it'll revert back to it's default. So to me, having a short name there is fine. The key, to me, is having a decent description, which, as you say, is meaningful and useful. And if you look, I DO have descriptions like you mention.
When I look at your Cafe Corner file, I see a lot of repeated information, where you have the same description in both the name and desciption columns, which really seems excessive to me. Why not have a short, simple name followed by the more lengthy description?
And the thing is, there's actually a pretty large precedence for this as well: the LDraw parts. Once could easily argue that the name "3001.dat" is completely cryptic to the point of uselessness. However, within it, we also have the description "Brick 2 x 4" which makes it usable. Why don't we simply name the part "Brick - 2x4.dat"? Because the simplified part-number-as-name makes things much more easy for programmers and others to work with. Imagine having to work with filenames like "Minifig_Torso_with_blah_blah_really_long_description_blah_blah_pattern.dat". While that might be useful to some users, it would likely result in large headaches for programmers (especially if the "_"s were converted to spaces). Yes, a name like 973p3x.dat may be more cryptic, but it's a lot easier to deal with, and we save the description for inside the file, which will be visible to the user and make it easier to use.
When I look at your Cafe Corner file, I see a lot of repeated information, where you have the same description in both the name and desciption columns, which really seems excessive to me. Why not have a short, simple name followed by the more lengthy description?
And the thing is, there's actually a pretty large precedence for this as well: the LDraw parts. Once could easily argue that the name "3001.dat" is completely cryptic to the point of uselessness. However, within it, we also have the description "Brick 2 x 4" which makes it usable. Why don't we simply name the part "Brick - 2x4.dat"? Because the simplified part-number-as-name makes things much more easy for programmers and others to work with. Imagine having to work with filenames like "Minifig_Torso_with_blah_blah_really_long_description_blah_blah_pattern.dat". While that might be useful to some users, it would likely result in large headaches for programmers (especially if the "_"s were converted to spaces). Yes, a name like 973p3x.dat may be more cryptic, but it's a lot easier to deal with, and we save the description for inside the file, which will be visible to the user and make it easier to use.
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I'm theJude! So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, his Judeness, or uh, Juder, or el Juderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
I'm theJude! So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, his Judeness, or uh, Juder, or el Juderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.