New principle: name things for what they do, not how they do it

[martinthomson]

This was brought up in our discussion of the Web Translation API.

In that example, the means by which translation is accomplished, AI (or ML), was used as part of the name.

[hober]

In the translation case, the fact that the API can be backed by LLMs is an implementation detail. "Do not expose implementation details in naming."

[LeaVerou]

Big +1 to either formulation.

[domenic]

I wonder how this design principle would look on existing APIs like navigator.gpu: should it be navigator.graphicsDisplay?

Or even things like "CSS": should it be "style and layout control" instead of talking about the specific mechanisms behind such control?

[martinthomson]

navigator.gpu seems to be concretely about graphics processors, though navigator.graphics would be equally fine (graphicsDisplay, in addition to being more verbose, might refer to a monitor).

We already have div.style for a CSS API and <style>, so arguably the principle is already being followed there. Obviously we have a ton of CSSBlah types defined, so it's not perfect, but it's not that bad.