Why is this question wrong? (asking for the name of a specific practice)

Question

I was told to make a post here to understand why is my question wrong after it was placed on hold: How is it called when you define constants that simply refer to a large namespace?

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Context

The question asks, essentially, how is it called when you create constants that refer to large namespaces in an attempt to simplify the writing. Basically, something like:

Sprite = Super::Large:Namespace::Graphics::Sprite

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Closing reason

The reason, it seems, is that my question is a guessing game (at least that's the most upvoted reason).

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My reasoning

According to the the linked blog post regarding guessing games, such questions involve vague, broad descriptions. However, I don't think that my question is vague at all. I am describing, very accurately, every step involved in the practice (which is to create constantes referring to large namespaces). I know perfectly well every aspect of the practice, but I don't know how is it called, which is what I'm asking.

Examples

• What is this (anti?)pattern called? (or how to describe it). The asker accurately describes an (anti)pattern, and wants to know how is it called:

I don't have a practical problem to solve here; it's just bugging me that there seems to be a common design element that I can't put a name to.

• Vocabulary: Should I call this apply or map?. The asker has a construct design, but is not sure whether it is a map or an apply method.

Would you call this specific construct a [...] or would it better be [...]

• What it is a data structure of a certain type called?. He's creating a data structure and doesn't know how is it called.

What is this called?

• How do you call the process of taking a part of a function and making an individual function of it?. The asker describes a process and wants to know its technical term.

I know there was a technical term for this. I'm just can't remember what it was.

• Is there a name for being able to quickly find the relevant code?. The asker is describing some sort of "ability to find relevant code", but he doesn't know how it is called, so he made the question:

It's obviously part of maintainability, but is there a name for this specific, desirable, property?

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How are all those open, upvoted questions different from mine? Why was mine closed exactly?

They all accurately describe something, and they all want to know how is it called. I'm fairly certain that I am doing the same.

In fact, my question happened to be answered. The answer was Type Aliasing.

Answer 1

I voted to reopen. Personally, I don't think this particular question qualifies as a "guessing game" question. From the blog post:

1. Guessing game questions aren't practical. The answer helps you concisely communicate the intent of your module to other programmers, and helps research possibly better ways of doing type aliasing. Those are both highly practical concerns. You're not just asking out of curiosity.
2. Guessing game questions don’t help others. While admittedly the gist of the question would be difficult to search, someone browsing the site can certainly learn something, and someone searching for "type aliasing" will get a good example of it. Besides, the same people also whine that this site shouldn't allow questions that are too easy to google. I guess they want some inscrutable precise medium level of googleability.
3. Guessing game questions are unfair. The mere fact of the question being difficult to search means you aren't intentionally off-loading work on answerers. Also, it's usually pretty easy to verify the consensus answer. Even when it goes by multiple names, that's useful information. If it happens to not have an "official name," that's also useful information.
4. Guessing game questions aren’t educational. Knowing the term opens up a whole world of educational opportunities. It allows you to do further research on best practices, and later when you move to a new language, it allows you to learn how to do the same thing.

The other common objection I see to this type of question is that it will encourage similar questions. Well, duh. That could be said of any topic. We don't close architecture questions because that might make people ask too many architecture questions. And it's not like you can make a series of questions out of this one by changing a couple words.

I understand some people don't personally like this kind of question. That's why we let you hide certain tags.

Answer 2

I didn't have any votes on this question, so this is more just me going "hmm..." with some various thoughts on the matter.

An important thing to realize is that questions have been asked in the past and are currently open is not an indication that something that is asked in the same or similar format will also be covered as "older stuff is open too". There is a lot of old questions that are not good examples of questions to ask.

I would also strongly suggest steering away from the "but it was answered" as an indication to question. From a previous issue ( Closed as not constructive? ) the argument was made:

The only answer given (likely before it was closed) clearly suggests that the question is constructive.

The reason to close such a question is that it has the likelihood of blowing up to everyone adding their own two cents to the question. I would suggest looking at your example of Vocabulary: Should I call this apply or map? which has answers such as:

You could call it an n-dimensional pointwise Cartesian product of functions. However, that doesn't make for a short name, and might require explanation...

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I'd call it fire_callbacks, call_callbacks, apply_callbacks, or something like that.

I've usually had such a method as part of a signal or observable object.

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To my mind, the word "map" implies some kind of association (e.g. a 'dictionary'), although there doesn't appear to be any association or pairing of data happening in your algorithm.

Everyone has their own opinion about how things are called, even if there is a real name for it.

This question is strongly related to the post Are "name that thing" questions on-topic? which has a variety of opinions on the topic. A more recent meta post seeking a more updated clarification can be read at Is asking "what is the technical term for this" on-topic?

From this more recent question there are two opinions, one of which can be recapped as:

These kinds of questions essentially boil down to "what terms should I Google for?" They are an indirect proxy for resource requests, which are specifically off-topic.

The key issue with the "find the name" is that we really don't want (and this is a community consensus thing more than a formal policy) to become ELU single-word-requests.

The questions of the 'name that thing' are without end - they are localized to your usage and situation and tend not to be something that generates long term useful content.

A poor metric (I know) of that "long term useful content" might be in part driven from views. If you look at your example questions, no matter how old they are they all have about 300-400 views. This suggests that they got them at the initial date of creation and then no one looked at them again. I know that thats a very poor qualification because some of the more esoteric questions have even fewer views (I mean... who wants to read about haskell monads?) but are likely good long term material.

So...

Thats all about my thoughts on the subject and bringing together some other posts to consider when looking into why it was closed. The "Name that thing" is a touchy area because of the possibility that it brings in lots of people saying "I call it this in my shop" and others saying "I call it that where I work."

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As to the "called something else in each language..."

The question asks, essentially, how is it called when you create constants that refer to large namespaces in an attempt to simplify the writing. Basically, something like:

Sprite = Super::Large:Namespace::Graphics::Sprite

Well, in perl, this is a typeglob alias (what are types?) (not to be confused with globs)

#!/usr/bin/perl

package Foo::Bar::Qux::Bletch;

$var = 42;

package main;

print $Foo::Bar::Qux::Bletch::var, "\n";

*A = *Foo::Bar::Qux::Bletch::var;

print $A,"\n";

Or at least... thats what I call it. Though some people may call it symbol table aliasing which wouldn't really be wrong either. And apparently some call it glob aliasing too. Oh well.