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Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

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Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#211

Post by smallnix »

gowld wrote: post #197
moregrist wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > No chemist wakes up and decides to call it “Steve” because Steve is a funny name and they think it’ll make their paper more approachable. The author is just wrong. Chemistry is fairly jam-packed with various cutesy names either to amuse the authors or because they’re attempting to make an algorithm memorable to the field. Off the top of my head: - SHAKE and RATTLE: Bond constraint algorithms. - CHARMm: An MD pack…

Most of your examples are software! Also SHAKE and RATTLE describe the motion-simulation in the algorithm. Acronyms are abbreviations for meaningful names.

> Acronyms are abbreviations for meaningful names.

I think often words are added to allow for a memorable name, such as crispr

> When Mojica and Jansen struck up a correspondence, they began tossing around catchy names for the patterns, and on Nov. 21, 2001, they settled on CRISPR—an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.

https://nautil.us/the-unbearable-weirdness-of-crispr-236685/

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#213

Post by accrual »

amelius wrote: post #108

One more reason why Windows is superior to OS X.

What are some examples of names that Windows does better than macOS and vice versa?

I've always though iOS naming was pretty logical - Calculator, Notes, Messages, Mail, Health, Clock, Calendar, Photos, Contacts, Maps, Settings. They're all named as if they're the reference implementation and everything else is 3rd party.

Under Windows we have Notepad, Paint, Terminal / Command Prompt. Word and Excel are likely household names so it's tough to ask a random person who's never heard of them to describe their purpose. But they did have "Clipchamp" which was a pretty dumb program IMO.

Here's a potential reference for Windows app naming conventions in modern Windows: https://windows-11.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_apps

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#214

Post by Arcuru »

jrm4 wrote: post #201

I'll die on the proverbial hill that the absolute worst instance of this has always been GIMP, which could have perhaps eaten Adobe's lunch MANY years ago. It was and perhaps still is, a solid competitor to Photoshop, but any unfamiliar grownup is, quite reasonably, going to never ever ever trust anything to do serious work with a name like that.

I agree GIMP is a bad name, but is it really a 'solid' competitor to Photoshop? My impression has been that it was never close to being competitive on features. I've only used either of them very briefly so I may be wildly wrong though.

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#215

Post by chihuahua »

WJW wrote: post #189
wombatpm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant XKCD Https://xkcd.com/1168/

Someone once tried this on me during Friday drinks and I successfully conquered the challenge with "tar --help". The challenger tried in vain to claim that this was not valid, but everyone present agreed that an exit code of zero meant that it was a valid solution.

I seem to remember "tar xvf filename.tar" from the 1990s, I'll try that out. If I'm wrong, I'll be dead before I even notice anything. That's better than dying of cancer or Alzheimer's.

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#216

Post by layer8 »

I agree with the sentiment, though the argument could be made better. It’s not really about good names being descriptive, nor about memorable mnemonics. It’s that modern naming styles tend to overload random English words for no good reason, but just to be cute (which I don’t consider a good reason) or to be evocative of something which it isn’t. One issue with that is that you might have very different connotations evoked by the word, that clashes with the software. And conversely, if you have to use the software regularly, it now encroaches into the semantic space of what you otherwise associate with the word. I’d like my software, and hence its name, to be its own thing, thank you very much.

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#217

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

armadsen wrote: post #191
munificent wrote: post #94

> This would be career suicide in virtually any other technical field. This article would certainly disagree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Department_of_Def... > the Golden Gate Bridge tells you it spans the Golden Gate strait. Is that even a meaningful distinction? Does anyone think, "Gee, I'd really like to cross the Golden Gate strait?" or do they think "I want to get to Napa?". > The Hoover…

Biology is another discipline where the author is wrong. See e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_hedgehog_protein

Don’t forget the Thagomizer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#218

Post by soanvig »

Sometimes "branded" names are a good thing.

For example, naming some application modules strictly after what they do is super tedious, and uses words that are already reserved, therefore creating ambiguous nomenclature. Maybe I have various sort of permissions in my system but naming that particular permission system some greek god name creates a clear and shared meaning across the team (both business and technical), and mind you that that's what communication is all about - a shared meaning. Nothing else.

P.S. (I'm deliberately not going into discussion about bad things with that approach)

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#219

Post by layer8 »

jrm4 wrote: post #201

I'll die on the proverbial hill that the absolute worst instance of this has always been GIMP, which could have perhaps eaten Adobe's lunch MANY years ago. It was and perhaps still is, a solid competitor to Photoshop, but any unfamiliar grownup is, quite reasonably, going to never ever ever trust anything to do serious work with a name like that.

Wait until you learn about Git. ;)

Re: Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

#220

Post by cranky908canuck »

dinkleberg wrote: post #196
cranky908canuck wrote: post #182

Yep. Just did a reimage update to Fedora 43, got errors about 'ptyxis' in some shell scripts. Wat (wipes desk and keyboard)? Oh, it's the graphical terminal program (alternative to 'gnome-terminal'). Well, um, ok. However, I will concede, after more digging as to why (as it rankled), that there was a "have to choose a unique name" issue there (even leaving aside trademark issues). I'm resigned (so I suppose signed up…

It’s a solid terminal, but could they have chosen a worse name?

There's another comment that points out that a g-le search will pick up few false positives (disclaimer, have not tried myself). So the initial 'WTF' gives way to 'well, ok, I see what you are trying to do'.
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