Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

Post by jcparkyn » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 10:14 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #280

plorkyeran wrote: post #98

> grep (global regular expression print), awk (Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan; the creators’ initials), sed (stream editor), cat (concatenate), diff (difference). Even when abbreviated, these names were either functional descriptions or systematic derivations. If you asked someone unfamiliar with unix tools what they thought each of these commands did, diff is the only one which they would have even the slightest chance…

> It's ridiculous to complain about "libsodium" and then hold up "awk" as a good name. Awk is short, easy to pronounce, and difficult to confuse with anything else. It's nearly as perfect as a name can be. > If you asked someone unfamiliar with unix tools what they thought each of these commands did, diff is the only one which they would have even the slightest chance of guessing. You seem to have confused the concep…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 10:19 AM UTC

DSMan195276 wrote: post #164

plorkyeran wrote: post #98

> grep (global regular expression print), awk (Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan; the creators’ initials), sed (stream editor), cat (concatenate), diff (difference). Even when abbreviated, these names were either functional descriptions or systematic derivations. If you asked someone unfamiliar with unix tools what they thought each of these commands did, diff is the only one which they would have even the slightest chance…

Yeah this definitely falls into the category of "I use them so they feel natural", there's nothing amazing about those names. The underlying problem is that you now run into so many named things (utilities, libraries, programs, etc.) in a day and they all have to differentiate themselves somehow. You can't name every crypto library `libcrypto` for obvious reasons.

Post by Gigachad » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 10:21 AM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #102

plorkyeran wrote: post #98

> grep (global regular expression print), awk (Aho, Weinberger, Kernighan; the creators’ initials), sed (stream editor), cat (concatenate), diff (difference). Even when abbreviated, these names were either functional descriptions or systematic derivations. If you asked someone unfamiliar with unix tools what they thought each of these commands did, diff is the only one which they would have even the slightest chance…

However once you learn that sed means stream editor, you won't ever forget it. libsodium is forgettable.

Post by pyrale » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 10:30 AM UTC

Post by yard2010 » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 10:49 AM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #385

xxs wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.