Consistent and Customizable Model Naming Conventions

[inishantthakur]

Here's a draft for your GitHub discussion post:

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Proposal: Consistent and Customizable Model Naming Conventions

Issue Summary

The current naming conventions in the project are causing confusion due to inconsistencies with global standards. For example, in the real-world hierarchy:

• Country → States → Cities → Areas → Locations,

Our current setup has a model named City that actually represents what should logically be State. This discrepancy leads to misunderstandings during development and increases the cognitive load for contributors.

Why This Matters

1. Clarity: Developers new to the project expect naming to align with common terminology. Misnamed models create unnecessary confusion.
2. Scalability: As the project grows, inconsistently named models make it harder to integrate new features or onboard developers.
3. Maintainability: When naming doesn’t match its purpose, the codebase becomes harder to maintain, and the likelihood of bugs increases.

Proposed Solution

We propose the following two-part solution:

1. Adopt Global Standards for Model Naming
   Models should reflect universally accepted or domain-specific terminology. For instance:

   • Rename the current City model to State.
   • Ensure other models follow the logical hierarchy (e.g., Country, State, City, Area, Location).

2. Allow Customizable Naming
   Introduce a mechanism to customize model names if a project has specific requirements. For example, Laravel's naming flexibility can be utilized:

   • Use configuration files to map model names to custom terms (e.g., State → Province).
   • Ensure relationships and method names in the models remain consistent regardless of naming changes.

Benefits

1. Improved Developer Experience: Developers can understand the structure intuitively without spending time deciphering mismatched names.
2. Flexibility: Projects with unique terminology can still customize names without affecting the base code.
3. Consistency: Aligning with global standards ensures that the codebase is easily understandable and extensible.

Next Steps

If the team agrees:

1. Start by renaming the City model to State and updating relevant references (migrations, relationships, etc.).
2. Design a configurable system for mapping model names to custom terms.
3. Update documentation to reflect these changes.

We’d love to hear thoughts or suggestions from the community on this proposal.

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This post ensures clarity and opens the floor for feedback while presenting a clear argument for aligning naming conventions. Let me know if you'd like further refinements!