The weird thing about Safari is that it's simultaneously a niche irrelevance on a minor computing platform, a groundbreaking web browser of major historical import, and the public face of the most important wad of code in play on Earth today.
When I first heard the name "Safari"
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Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#22The name Safari is still one of those mystery to me, I like the name, and my guess it properly came from the idea of Navigation -> Compass - > Safari. Although i was expecting a post to truly reveal the mystery behind the reason for such a name.
Safari is a swahili name(Swahili is spoken by people of the East-coast of Africa). It means a journey or an adventure. It could also mean a great undertaking. Steve must have known this from his many journeys.:)
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#23Calling the browser 'Safari' is weird, if you think about it. I remember trying to teach my mom how to use the iPad to access the internet: "First press the home button" "Ok" "Now tap on Safari" "But I don't want to see animals" "..." And that's when I realized why Internet Explorer was so successful.
Well, it fits with the theme. "Safari" is Swahili for "journey" or "trip" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari#Etymology ) That fits it in with the browsers of the time: Netscape Navigator Internet Explorer I would guess the code name 'Alexander' came from 'Alexander the Great', who not only traveled a lot, but also conquered, just like Safari was aiming to conquer the Internet. They must have ignored the 'die young…
Well, I can't see how "killing elephants" is different than "exploiting the natives; killing rare animals".
Safari is phonetically a very nice name, however it still bears negative connotations. At least for some people.
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#24Not sure of the actual origin, but it seems to me that Safari is a reference to "journey", and works with the OS X naming after big cats. Then again it could just make sense in hindsight.
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#25But why is the icon a compass though?
Where do you want to go today?
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#26Calling the browser 'Safari' is weird, if you think about it. I remember trying to teach my mom how to use the iPad to access the internet: "First press the home button" "Ok" "Now tap on Safari" "But I don't want to see animals" "..." And that's when I realized why Internet Explorer was so successful.
Well, it fits with the theme. "Safari" is Swahili for "journey" or "trip" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari#Etymology ) That fits it in with the browsers of the time: Netscape Navigator Internet Explorer I would guess the code name 'Alexander' came from 'Alexander the Great', who not only traveled a lot, but also conquered, just like Safari was aiming to conquer the Internet. They must have ignored the 'die young…
I was born in South Africa and have spent half my life in its neighbour, Namibia. Both countries are well known for diverse wildlife and vast unspoiled natural habitats.
"Safari", to me, is a word foreigners use unnecessarily and some locals chuckle at when they hear it. Locals simply say "We're going to Blahblah National Park for Christmas." It's also the name for a brand of dried fruits and nuts, which makes it even weirder to hear it in conversation here.
I honestly didn't grasp the relevance of the name to the Internet until you explained it now, despite programming for over 15 years and living in Africa for over 29 years.
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#27But why is the icon a compass though?
When you're on a safari in amazonas, that's what you need in order to find your way (well, nowadays a GPS might do wonders, but when the name safari was historically established, there was no gps)
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it fits with the theme. "Safari" is Swahili for "journey" or "trip" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari#Etymology ) That fits it in with the browsers of the time: Netscape Navigator Internet Explorer I would guess the code name 'Alexander' came from 'Alexander the Great', who not only traveled a lot, but also conquered, just like Safari was aiming to conquer the Internet. They must have ignored the 'die young…
I'll write another post about why we called it "Alexander." You're not far from the mark about it being related to "Alexander the Great." But not for the reason you think.
Given that Safari/WebKit is based on KHTML, I'd say that Alexander was named after KDE's Konqueror.
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#29Calling the browser 'Safari' is weird, if you think about it. I remember trying to teach my mom how to use the iPad to access the internet: "First press the home button" "Ok" "Now tap on Safari" "But I don't want to see animals" "..." And that's when I realized why Internet Explorer was so successful.
Well, it fits with the theme. "Safari" is Swahili for "journey" or "trip" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safari#Etymology ) That fits it in with the browsers of the time: Netscape Navigator Internet Explorer I would guess the code name 'Alexander' came from 'Alexander the Great', who not only traveled a lot, but also conquered, just like Safari was aiming to conquer the Internet. They must have ignored the 'die young…
Well, Safari used KHTML, and the big KHTML-based browser at the time was called Konqueror...
Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"
#30I think many of you in the Hacker News crowd will recognize this problem that I'm yet to find a solution to myself: mkdir [blinking cursor] Then 30 minutes passes and you didn't end up making that thing anyway since you got distracted while thinking up a name for it.
I always start with a codename. And for the longest time I've used the surnames of foreign scientists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_scientists
I once came up with a great name for a product I was hacking on with my roommate, so we used that name internally. By the time we'd been coding for a few weeks, though, what the product actually was had evolved and the name was no longer relevant (despite being scattered throughout the codebase, the github repo, the directory structure, etc).
Ever since then I've been a codename fan. I go for liquor names (since I work at home across from the booze shelf)- I'm currently building Frangelico.