Most active commenters
  • necovek(3)

←back to thread

Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

(larr.net)
330 points todsacerdoti | 13 comments | 11 Dec 25 18:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.71s | source | bottom
Show context
pdpi ◴[12 Dec 25 00:03 UTC] No.46239164[source]▶
GNU's version of Yacc is called Bison. Pine Is Not Elm (even though that was never an official acronym). UNIX was UNICS which was a pun on MULTICS. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what dd stands for. nano is a copy of pico which was the "PIne COmposer". Postfix is a completely opaque portmanteau of post (as in mail) and "bug fix". C++ is "C incremented", and C is the successor of B, which is the successor of BCPL.

Developers haven't "lost the plot", we never had it in the first place.

Inversely, Clang, LLDB, jq, fzf, loc are modern projects perfectly in line with the author's notion of a good name. "mise-en-place" is the perfect metaphor for what mise does.

replies(16): >>46239266 #>>46239267 #>>46239293 #>>46239675 #>>46239818 #>>46239903 #>>46240006 #>>46240043 #>>46240475 #>>46240516 #>>46240745 #>>46240858 #>>46240981 #>>46240986 #>>46242271 #>>46242669 #
1. necovek ◴[12 Dec 25 02:04 UTC] No.46240043[source]▶
Even GNU is a recursive acronym, Emacs a convoluted one... What's Perl, Python, Java... all about? Remember how JavaScript was named? Don't mention Go (go-lang) or Pascal... Git, Mercurial, CVS anyone?

I believe this makes much ado about nothing.

replies(5): >>46240449 #>>46241400 #>>46241676 #>>46243053 #>>46243456 #
2. pdpi ◴[12 Dec 25 03:08 UTC] No.46240449[source]▶
"Concurrent Versions/Versioning System" is a pretty reasonable one, though.
replies(1): >>46240591 #
3. necovek ◴[12 Dec 25 03:32 UTC] No.46240591[source]▶
Then Gimp is also a great name, right? GNU-is-not-Unix Image Manipulation Program: immediatelly obvious what it does as soon as you learn what the acronym stands for.

Or Gtk even: Gnu-is-not-Unix Image Manipulation Program ToolKit (later changed to refer to Gnome instead of Gimp I believe).

replies(1): >>46242929 #
4. usefulcat ◴[12 Dec 25 06:25 UTC] No.46241400[source]▶
Perl stands for “practical extraction and report language”
replies(1): >>46241961 #
5. xxs ◴[12 Dec 25 07:19 UTC] No.46241676[source]▶
Java is easy - named after the coffee beans of the coffee they used to drink...

CVS (noticed already mentioned by a sibling comment) is just an abbreviation.

Python - well Monty Python

replies(2): >>46241910 #>>46242111 #
6. necovek ◴[12 Dec 25 08:02 UTC] No.46241910[source]▶
Yes, I am simply highlighting that programmers have not used descriptive names consistently... well, ever (reinforcing the point the GP made).

The entire premise of the OP is simply wrong.

7. nineteen999 ◴[12 Dec 25 08:13 UTC] No.46241961[source]▶
Also "pathlogically eclectic rubbish lister".
8. eloisant ◴[12 Dec 25 08:40 UTC] No.46242111[source]▶
Java was originally called Oak but its creator because he could see an oak from his office, but marketing people at Sun thought Java would be more catchy. Yes it's named after coffee beans, but it has no relation whatsoever to the language or the way it was created, it's just a marketing name.
replies(1): >>46242868 #
9. yard2010 ◴[12 Dec 25 10:49 UTC] No.46242868{3}[source]▶
Imagine a parallel world in which Java is called Oak and it's actually nice from inception, not just like nice after decades.
10. zem ◴[12 Dec 25 10:58 UTC] No.46242929{3}[source]▶
and gdk was, delightfully enough, the gnu's not unix image manipulation program toolkit drawing kit
11. delaminator ◴[12 Dec 25 11:19 UTC] No.46243053[source]▶
The 2000s Plan9 community asserts "Gnu is Not Useful" as the correct expansion.
12. johnnyanmac ◴[12 Dec 25 12:22 UTC] No.46243456[source]▶
Pascal is probably the most sensible name, as far as traditional naming schemes go. Names after Blaise Pascal, mathematician and one of the two inventors of the mechanical calculator. Pretty fair association and tribute.

Git as a name is our daily reminder that pre-mainstream programmers were rebellious against the mainstream (to put it as generously as I could) before corporate interests took over. but i encourwge you to look up that story yourself.

replies(1): >>46243665 #
13. disgruntledphd2 ◴[12 Dec 25 12:53 UTC] No.46243665[source]▶
>Git

The stupid content tracker.

Still one of my favourite names.