ClotheYourData

Contain the chaos of coding--one of the elements of How to Code. The idea is to contain data (in a struct (or other named entity) or a special symbol) for which you have a useful categorization (so others can use it) and maximize these groupings by finding rules which consistently represent and support the unseen relationships of data and code objects.

In other words, to make it something more than 0s and 1s. This is a type of Name Fu because the computer doesn't care what you call it--it never deals with your names. It is strictly for the User level.

Naming your functions, for example is a start. Your language already starts this by creating special tokens like + for add, for example. The symbol acts like a name which, underneath the appearances, calls a function in the machine

In C, specifying type declarations for variables at the top of your code is an example of clothing your data (as well as an example of SeparabilityOfDomains since your actually using type-words rather than generic machine words). Another example, is naming your constants, instead of putting magical values all over your code giving very little information about why they're there. The convention suggested (under CRUCIBLE 2) is to use underscores for constants: _CAPS_ when those constants are stringent and _lowercase_ when they're for public modification or arbitrary.

Imagine this: you have only strings of 0s and 1s of, say, 1024 digits. Now, what force do you have to make meaning out of data? Well, you have the CPU which may separate it into 8-bit words. That's layer 1. Then you have the force of the text terminal, which turns them into ASCII. That could be considered a nice level 2 "clothing of your data". And then you might organize that into lines and make a text file with an EOF marker, level 3.

But that's if your 1s and 0s are intended to be Text, because they could just be binary streams of unknown origin. In which case, you could conceivably have templates which match and architect that data into greater meaning: frames of a movie, for example. But never forget it's basis: straight (likely CPU words) streams of binary data without any meaning.

All this is to get you to think about how to structure objects that manipulate data in sophisticated ways, working from their native language. ...to make a UnifiedDataModel and DataEcosystem.

This rule is balanced with a counteracting rule: if you don't have a category that represents your data, LeaveItNaked.