Why the name?
wiki.debian.org
Why the name?
1–10 of 101 posts
Re: Why the name?
#2The etymology of Unix programs: very interesting! The writers of this page also have a sense of humor:
> bc > originally a front-end for dc ("desk-calculator"); modern GNU bc is instead a backwards-compatible byte-code interpreter for dc, but what it stands for is still "basic calculator"
Re: Why the name?
#3Some pretty interesting explanations in this list. I personally prefer to not let the developers name things, because they usually come up with very bad names (hard to pronounce, hard to google for, have overtly sexual connotations, etc). Command line utilities are a little different because there's a culture of having short names making them easier to type. But it's still very hard to google for things like "less" because it's a common word.
Re: Why the name?
#4Great fun. One minor nitpick - the story of "Apache Server" being originally derived from "A Patchy Server" is a long-standing myth; the name was originally intended to be a tribute to the Apache Native American peoples. The Wikipedia article on Apache (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server) includes a link to an interview with Brian Behlendorf (http://www.linux-mag.com/id/472/) where he explains how the story arose.
Re: Why the name?
#5Some pretty interesting explanations in this list. I personally prefer to not let the developers name things, because they usually come up with very bad names (hard to pronounce, hard to google for, have overtly sexual connotations, etc). Command line utilities are a little different because there's a culture of having short names making them easier to type. But it's still very hard to google for things like "less" b…
Searches for "Unix less" or "Linux less" are spot on. Even "less command line" will get you there easily. It's all about context.
And of course there are always the man pages, which is usually the best place to start.
Re: Why the name?
#6Some pretty interesting explanations in this list. I personally prefer to not let the developers name things, because they usually come up with very bad names (hard to pronounce, hard to google for, have overtly sexual connotations, etc). Command line utilities are a little different because there's a culture of having short names making them easier to type. But it's still very hard to google for things like "less" b…
It's one of the two hard problems in Computer Science:
1. Naming things 2. Cache invalidation 3. Off-by-one errors.
Re: Why the name?
#7"python - is of course a Monty Python reference"
I had no idea! Makes me love it even more.
Re: Why the name?
#8Some pretty interesting explanations in this list. I personally prefer to not let the developers name things, because they usually come up with very bad names (hard to pronounce, hard to google for, have overtly sexual connotations, etc). Command line utilities are a little different because there's a culture of having short names making them easier to type. But it's still very hard to google for things like "less" b…
Searches for "Unix less" or "Linux less" are spot on. Even "less command line" will get you there easily. It's all about context. And of course there are always the man pages, which is usually the best place to start.
I personally find the man pages very dense and poorly organized. `man grep` for example is my own personal nightmare. I think the man pages should introduce a policy of simple usage examples instead of throwing 99% of information you don't care about at you at once. Something like http://bropages.org/
Re: Why the name?
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Searches for "Unix less" or "Linux less" are spot on. Even "less command line" will get you there easily. It's all about context. And of course there are always the man pages, which is usually the best place to start.
I personally find the man pages very dense and poorly organized. `man grep` for example is my own personal nightmare. I think the man pages should introduce a policy of simple usage examples instead of throwing 99% of information you don't care about at you at once. Something like http://bropages.org/
Perhaps you would find info pages more useful. For example, 'info grep'.
Re: Why the name?
#10Another fun that appears elsewhere but really does deserve to be in this list: Debian is named after Debra and Ian Murdock (he's the founder of the project, she was his girlfriend).