The mistake the author is making is that indeed his friend Sam will still be Sam (even if he changes jobs) but he is a human that exists regardless of his funct

The mistake the author is making is that indeed his friend Sam will still be Sam (even if he changes jobs) but he is a human that exists regardless of his function. Variable names’ on the other hand only exist to serve a function, when the function is gone the names that refer to it should be gone too. If you have a ml-worker node and you no longer need an ml worker, you refactor the code to remove those. It’s much easier to remove than to rename, and consistent mild refactoring ( or code massage if you will) means you’re more likely to remember what lurks in the dark corners of your code base.