It seems to me that this quote makes a rather standard usage of the "Zeugma" [1] figure of speech. It consists in putting next to each other two things of very different nature. In that case we have the very technical problem of invalidating caches on the one hand, and the much higher level problem of naming things on the other hand.
That produces a rather stylish quote.
But if Phil Karlton was actually referring to the technical problem of assigning unique identifier as you suggest, the figure of speech is lost and the quote becomes less stylish.
So I prefer tho read "naming things" as the very general problem of naming things.
It seems to me that this quote makes a rather standard usage of the "Zeugma" [1] figure of speech. It consists in putting next to each other two things of very different nature. In that case we have the very technical problem of invalidating caches on the one hand, and the much higher level problem of naming things on the other hand.
That produces a rather stylish quote.
But if Phil Karlton was actually referring to the technical problem of assigning unique identifier as you suggest, the figure of speech is lost and the quote becomes less stylish.
So I prefer tho read "naming things" as the very general problem of naming things.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma