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Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

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Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It allows you to fail multiple times without changing the product name" Great.

I'm not sure what you think you're saying, but rephrasing the benefit to include the word "fail" does not make it less beneficial.

I'm saying that choosing a nonsense name for your product with the thought that, should you have to "pivot" (aka failing), you'll be able to keep the name, is brain dead. Besides, this is a programming language; what exactly are you going to "pivot" to?

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#32
post #22

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

It's hard to recall how many (probably hundreds) of projects (from humble command line utilities to social movements) I have imagined but never started and ultimately forgotten just because I couldn't come up with how to name the file/folder for them. Perhaps some could change my life or the world but now they're lost to oblivion. Guess what's I am doing right now? Googling for a good generator of cool-looking gibber…

In my earlier years, I tended to use swearwords, exclamations, etc ("meh" and "nub" are still gotos) to name functions that I wasn't exactly sure what I would do with. If they were worth keeping beyond a short programming session (which was usually not the case), then I gave them a real name later.

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#33
post #22

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

I would hardly call it irrelevant. The name means “Vodka helps you write creatively”, which is a sentiment Ernest Hemingway would have agreed with.

I just assumed it was called Vodka because that's what I'd need to deal with anything Lisp-related. :-) I guess they could have called it "OG Kush" too...

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#34
post #22

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

I would hardly call it irrelevant. The name means “Vodka helps you write creatively”, which is a sentiment Ernest Hemingway would have agreed with.

As a matter of fact, I first thought the title was a metaphor like "there is no lack of creativity, only lack of vodka".

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#35
I'll admit I don't know how the creator imagines this will be used, but it did suggest an interesting use case to me.

Sometimes text adventure writers will write a full transcript of their game before they code it, but typically there is a large structural and semantic difference between a transcript and a program, so there are some barriers to the translation of transcript -> program. With a tool like this you possibly could remove and/or alter those barriers to enhance the programming process.

I imagine the same method might apply to developing chat bots and the like as well.

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#36
post #26
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's smart to have an irrelevant one-word noun name, it gives you the flexibility to pivot your product over time, without being tied to an overly-specific name.

"It allows you to fail multiple times without changing the product name" Great.

How do you think progress is made if not by failing and trying again?

and again, and again.... etc.

Of course, you're the "epic" engineer, so I bet you're really good at everything and never fail, right?

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#37
post #22

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

Searching "Vodka coding environment" works fine. "Vodka coding" also works fine. Both of those show this project in the top results.

Your critique can also be aimed at yahoo, google, amazon, and so on. All of those are irrelevant one word nouns.

Go is probably the worst offender, and yet people just search golang and it works fine.

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#39
post #22

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

It's hard to recall how many (probably hundreds) of projects (from humble command line utilities to social movements) I have imagined but never started and ultimately forgotten just because I couldn't come up with how to name the file/folder for them. Perhaps some could change my life or the world but now they're lost to oblivion. Guess what's I am doing right now? Googling for a good generator of cool-looking gibber…

Try this:

  curl -s -X POST "https://api.gfycat.com/v1/gfycats" -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq .gfyname -r
I call it "gfyname" and stick it in ~/bin. Then you can do `while true; do gfyname; done`

  AchingVengefulDungenesscrab
  AgitatedLastingBorzoi
  FairImmaculateGelding
  WeightyInsistentJellyfish
  UnevenHopefulDungbeetle
  UntidyWelloffBellfrog
  PracticalDismalCat
  UnkemptWebbedGreendarnerdragonfly
  FaintHauntingFairybluebird
  RichPerkyDogfish
  MelodicRecentBarracuda
  GenerousBronzeBarasinga
  QueasyFewHarlequinbug
  UnrulyFaintApisdorsatalaboriosa
Melodic Barracuda isn't terrible. Weighty. Dismal Cat. And so on.

Looks like it sometimes returns `null` now, which is a shame. It used to be rock solid. It's nice for generating names for your temp files.

Re: Vodka is a creative coding environment for creative writers (LISP)

#40

I'll admit I don't know how the creator imagines this will be used, but it did suggest an interesting use case to me. Sometimes text adventure writers will write a full transcript of their game before they code it, but typically there is a large structural and semantic difference between a transcript and a program, so there are some barriers to the translation of transcript -> program. With a tool like this you possi…

There are a few DSLs for this purpose, like Ink [1].

[1]: https://github.com/inkle/ink

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