This is a brief little post about naming. Naming is well-known to be one of the hardest problems in computer science. But why is this the case? I claim that one of the reasons is because often naming systems are being asked to do triple-duty; a single name is used to perform the three functions of reference, identity, and display. What does this mean?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://topos.institute/blog/2025-05-07-three-functions-of-a-name/