Alice & Bob

Things like patterns and best practices help out developers by promoting consistency and communication.  e.g.

 

In describing a piece of code to a fellow developer, which is easier to understand:

1)       I defined a family of algorithms, encapsulated each one as an object, and made them interchangeable
-or-

2)      “I used a Strategy Pattern” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_pattern)

 

Clearly #2 is easier to understand.  Not only did I use a tried-and-true coding technique (the pattern), but the term “Strategy Pattern” conveys special meaning and becomes part of the common language amongst developers.

 

In that same vein, the Security Community uses a common set of terms to represent characters in a system:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_in_cryptography

.  The canonical example of this is: ‘Alice sends a message to Bob, but does not want Eve to read the message’.  When two security professionals sit down to discuss a scenario, this common verbiage raises the level and efficiency of communication.

 

Please read the ‘Characters in cryptography’ link and familiarize yourself with the characters.  I think these characters can have potential value in many developers day-to-day lives, just like design patterns already do.  Improving communication and developing a common set of terms will only help a team be more successful!

 

jk