Reusing names in a naming scheme [closed]

Usually I think it's better to not reuse names.

Here's an example. If you retire the server 'aardvark', later replace it with a new server, and later still find a program which references 'aardvark' which is failing, you don't know if it's a problem with the program, or with the new aardvark. If you called the new server 'aaron' instead, you instantly know that it's the program which needs looking at. On the other hand, if the program says 'aaron', then you know that it's something on aaron.

Another example is in the migration process.

Plug in aaron, and install it, and get the services working. Then you take your nameservice alias for each service, and switch them from aardvark to aaron, and test that it works ok. At the end of the day, you can then leave both machines running until you're happy that it's ok to finally retire aardvark.

This is one of the reasons why using significant or cool names is a bad idea overall. If you had named your boxes foo01, foo02, foo03, ..., fooNNN you would have never developed any kind of attachment to your names or naming scheme(s).