Terminology: Ensure

What's in a name? Well, quite a lot actually. At best, a poorly chosen name gives little or no insight into the nature of thing it is naming, and at worst the name can be misleading and actually send you down the wrong path entirely. Conversely, well chosen names can convey the meaning, and intent for a variable, method or project.

There's plenty of literature available on the topic, so I'm not going to belabour the point any more, other than to give a couple of examples of names that I try to use consistently in my projects. I'll add other examples as and when I remember them!

The first, I've already mentioned in a previous post, and that name is "Scaffold". To me, it means "something I've put up as a temporary structure, that isn't intended to be there when the final product is released".

The second name is used when I want to get a reference to something that may not have been created yet.

If I was going to create a foo object, I'd probably use "CreateFoo". But I can't use "Create" because the object might already exist.

If I was going to retrieve a foo object, I might use "GetFoo". But again, I can't use "Get" because the object might not have been created yet.

So the term I use in this situation is "Ensure". I think "EnsureFoo" conveys the meaning and is distinct from "Create" and "Get", and doesn't mislead.