The lorem ipsum in development

We’ve all been guilty of this: showing a new UI mockup to the user with lorem ipsum or typing in fake data into forms for testing. That’s bad because fake data does not have the same characteristics of real data. Real data has specific lengths, formats and structure. Fake data is arbitrary. It is even more embarrassing if a lorem ipsum gets into production. But using fake data is not only a problem in the user interface.
Using fake data is also a problem in programming. We see it in names of classes: *Impl, *Manager or *Holder.
These names do not communicate well. Why not name classes with intent? Take a look at domain driven design and the ubiquitous language for a starter.
But also using only fake data in tests is bad. Yes you need to test the extreme cases but even here you need to inform your selection of data from the real world. Build in the constraints that the domain provides. Without the domain you build highly flexible software which is a nightmare to maintain. But also the test data should not be just arbitrary: you need the corner cases and to find them look again into the domain, the real world. To do this you need to gather real data from users, domain experts or existing systems and reports. Real data has constraints, constraints drive creativity and decisions. The problem with deferring the decisions too much is you maintain your flexibility until then. So make decisions but not from fake but real data.