define file naming convention

[Engineer1119]

goal: make files in Google Drive and GitHub more readily identifiable (aka less confusing) by defining a set of rough guidelines and, as appropriate, firm rules for how to name files. These naming standards should find the balance between ease of use (for people trying to find files) and level of effort required to follow them.

deliverable: a document that

1. sets broad guidelines for file naming,
2. sets firm rules for file naming,
3. justifies the need for each instance of a guideline or rule,
4. (optional) identifies edge cases,
5. (optional) identifies ways to address edge cases
6. (optional and highly encouraged) identifies existing file naming standard(s) to be adopted or adapted to Coral.
7. (concurrent with 6) justifies the use of existing file naming standard(s)

suggested steps:

1. assignee(s) or others create Google Document
2. assignee(s) or others draft a deliverable in this document
3. assignee(s) or others solicit input from team (via Riot, team meeting, email, etc.)
4. announce that the draft is ready for review in a comment in response to this issue

Note: individuals providing input should be added as assignees to this task and noted as authors within the draft deliverable.

timetable: draft for review by 11:59 PST, December 14th, 2018

[capsulecorplab]

Open to alternative suggestions, but one idea for a naming convention was a cross between the document type and the first 8 characters of a version 1 universally unique id (UUID) hash, e.g., SOP-ed6a94ca is an instance of a standard operating procedure. Optionally, its full UUID, e.g., ed6a94ca-fa45-11e8-8eb2-f2801f1b9fd1, could be embedded somewhere in the document for other identification purposes.

[Engineer1119]

Open to alternative suggestions, but one idea for a naming convention was a cross between the document type and the first 8 characters of a version 1 universally unique id (UUID) hash, e.g., SOP-ed6a94ca is an instance of a standard operating procedure. The document itself could optionally contain its full UUID, e.g., ed6a94ca-fa45-11e8-8eb2-f2801f1b9fd1, for other identification purposes.

That would certainly help with any future efforts to make parsing our files easier for a machine, but a UUID hash wouldn't really help us poor humans out that much.

[Engineer1119]

I started putting together a list of file naming rules here. Please let me know what you think by commenting in the doc or on Github.