• Poor Naming Conventions Impact Findability

People can't find the internally developed solutions that they need due to poor naming conventions.

• Reusable Software component(s) are available internally but users can't easily find them.
• This problem is more likely to occur in larger, siloed companies.
• Historically, the company does not have a culture of sharing code across silos.

• Enough people are contributing things to inner sourcing that it is becoming hard to find components.
• Poor internal search engine (or not connected to git repositories; and difficult to make this change happen)
• Users may not be able to find the people responsible even if they know where the common places are.
• People become discouraged from engaging in inner source when they search and can't find what they need.
• It can be difficult enough to find stuff in github, this is compounded if names are cryptic and keywords aren't used.

• Improve findability within a repo. Use meaningful project name; don't use code names for projects; put keywords into descriptions.
  • note: problem/pattern: solution exists but people aren't following it
    • ask PayPal folks about their practices set up to address this problem
    • Use tagging (tag repositories) (validated)
    • Use labels
    • Pull Repo names, descriptions, and README.md files into the search engine (not the code itself)
    • Instate a process change to first check for internal solutions for this problem
    • Concierge service (guide) to help product people find stuff. Might not scale but could be helpful in the beginning. -Encourage the community to identify redundancy and make recommendations for the better package to use. Could be a dedicated role within a company, someone with a complete overview of what is going on

• Internal components are visible.
• Developers looking for code can search for it and find it quickly.
• Developers are now looking internally for software components.
• Increased reuse, faster time to market.
• Increased collaboration.
• Higher quality code.
• Increased opportunities for innovation.

Brainstormed pattern idea reviewed

• Georg Grutter
• Erin Bank
• Padma Sudarsan
• Tim Yao