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The QA manager where I work just informed me there is a bug in my desktop app due to the sign-on prompt being "Operator Id" when it should be "Operator ID". Her argument being that "Id" refers to the ego portion of Freud's "psychic apparatus" and is not semantically correct.
Now being an anal engineer (AE) I of course had to go and lookup Id vs ID and from my cursory investigations (google) it seems ID is just as commonly used for Freud's ego as Id is.
So my reasoning would be that Id is a shortened version of "Identifier" and is more correct or at least more commonly used than ID which would typically indicate a two word abbreviation.
I could just change the UI but then I wouldn't be holding up my profession as an AE so I was wondering if there any best practices or references for this sort of thing that I could use to support my argument? Keeping in mind that this question relates to the user interface and not the source code where abbreviations and casing are a whole different branch of philosophy.
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"ID" as a word is correct not because it has only two letters, it's correct because that's the accepted short form of "identification."
In English, both letters should be capitalized ("ID"). The lower case word "id" has a specific meaning that does not invoke the meaning "identifier," or "identification." In documentation it should be spelled out (ID abbreviates two different words, after all), or be in all caps.
'"ID" is a short form for "identity" or "identification": For legal immigrants, a primary ID includes a green card, authorization of employment from the Department of Justice or certificate of naturalization.
Both the NOAD and the OED report that ID is an abbreviation for identity, identification. They weren't carrying any ID. I lost my ID card. The term id is used in psychoanalysis, and Id is a variant spelling of Eid.
Personally, I use "Id". The compiler doesn't care but my eyes do. Compare:
GetIDByWhatever <-- looks terrible GetIdByWhatever <-- oh so pretty! Aesthetics is more important than grammar when it comes to code, always. (Update: 4 years later, I don't stand by this statement anymore)
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According to Merriam-Webster, the abbreviation is "ID". If it were a correct abbreviation, it would have to be "Id." with the period.
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