Question

My company strongly suggests to use subfolder names prefixed by digits for larger projects. This is recorded in the companies code convention articles.

This should look something like this

ApplicationRoot/
    SomeSubFolder
        00_SubSubFolder/
        01_SubSubFolder/
        02_SubSubFolder/
    AnotherSubFolder
        00_SubSubFolder/
        01_SubSubFolder/
        02_SubSubFolder/

Somehow this feels like an useless overhead to me but I have no valid arguments against that.

Maybe more experienced people can tell me about scenarios which show why this is a bad habit or tell my why it is good – besides the possibility to force the folder to be in a certain order?

Answer 1

it’s useful only if the order is important (e.g. order of running scripts). otherwise it’s bad (in my opinion). the arguments are:

• some products don’t allow it. e.g. java package structure maps directly to directory structure. but package name can’t start with a digit.
• can’t use convention over configuration. some tools help you a lot with software development and they assume you are doing it same way as rest of the world (because it’s a good practise). you will have a lot of configuration to make them accept your structure (e.g. maven)
• human perception. we look for data by names, not by numbers. when i navigate to a file in e.g. krusader/total commander and i have a dozen of dirs i type a letter because i know the folder name.
• confusion. if those numbers mean nothing then it introduces confusion to other people. they will always ask ‘why’, they will always affraid to modify add, remove because they will think someone did it because of some very important reason. that’s a clear violation of KISS and least surprise principles (such things heavily affect new developers entry barrier)
• no flexibility. sometimes it’s good to have custom folder names. for whatever reason, e.g automatic search of configuration in multiple directories (often used in java/spring). but heaving such naming convention it’s more difficult to do it. sometimes when you want to use automatic naming translation it also may be harder as your target format may not support names starting with digits (e.g. logins)
• overhead. if there is no reason to keep it then any overhead should be removed. again: KISS
• last but not least. developer/architect is always the one that makes decisions about software design, layout, used techniques etc. if his hands are tights because of senseless rules invented by non-technical bureaucrats from the previous epoch, that’s nothing but troubles