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330 points todsacerdoti | 6 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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the__alchemist ◴[] No.46235329[source]
If the community followed the author's guidance, we would have names like "Generic LLM wrapper 690" ("GLW690" if following the early programming language conventions.) or "Github clone with a different ideology 11"
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lr0 ◴[] No.46235362[source]
Not at all. You don't name by category, you can name by function or approach. PostgreSQL isn't "Generic SQL Database 47" it's the successor to Ingres (Post-Ingres-SQL). If your "LLM wrapper" does nothing distinctive worth naming, maybe don't publish it. But if it specifically handles streaming, call it something like "llm-stream-client." If it focuses on prompt templating, "prompt-template-engine." The name encodes the actual value proposition.

I actually stated this on the post, but let me reiterate, I think that naming things in somehow fun way is totally okay as long as it stays relevant to what the tool actually does (you can have this achieved by play wording suffixes (Mongo"DB", Open"SSL", Ma"git" are good examples, all are better than elephant, dog, and beaver).

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hyperpape ◴[] No.46235525[source]
> PostgreSQL isn't "Generic SQL Database 47" it's the successor to Ingres (Post-Ingres-SQL).

Indeed. This helps me know that I'm using a database more modern than Ingres. I chose not to use Oracle or SQL Server because they might have predated Ingres.

Just one question: what's Ingres, and why do I care about it? Of course, I don't, which makes Postgres no more useful of a name than "fluffnutz" or "hooxup". That said, over time, I've come to like the name Postgres.

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1. lr0 ◴[] No.46235817[source]
You don't need to know what Ingres is. "PostgreSQL" still tells you it's SQL-related, which is infinitely more than "fluffnutz" tells you. And once you learn it's a database, the name reinforces that knowledge forever. Good luck remembering what "fluffnutz" does in 6 months.
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2. hyperpape ◴[] No.46236657[source]
That's a really nice mnemonic. I wish I lived in an alternate universe where Postgres was called PostgreSQL so that it was easier to remember. Perhaps if we start using that, it will take over, like how everyone calls the Go project Golang.
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3. lr0 ◴[] No.46237683[source]
https://www.postgresql.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostgreSQL

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4. hyperpape ◴[] No.46238974{3}[source]
I know.

My point is that almost everyone refers to it as Postgres, because they do not actually value the descriptiveness of "PostgreSQL".

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5. necovek ◴[] No.46240405[source]
When Google introduced the Go language, it was impossible to google for any content related to it. So community quickly pivoted to always saying golang ;)

(At least that's how I remember it as I was "why name a language like that when you know it won't be searchable")

6. halper ◴[] No.46240971{4}[source]
I always thought it was because it is more obvious how to pronounce "postgres" than "PostgreSQL".