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When I first heard the name "Safari"

donmelton.com

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Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#51

Post by peteretep »

mef wrote: post #43
peteretep wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "How can CPAN help me with this problem?" Answer: http://search.cpan.org/search?query=Acme%3A%3AMetaSyntactic&...

Without knowing my way around perl, how would I use this to generate a name from one of those categories?

Perl modules (almost) always come with a _Synopsis_ section in the documentation, which describes how to use them. Here's a direct link to the one for `Acme::MetaSyntactic::soviet`:

http://search.cpan.org/~jforget/Acme-MetaSyntactic-soviet-0....

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#52

Post by smickie »

Someone wrote: post #13
yen223 wrote: post #3

Calling 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 always assumed, no ones mentioned it yet, that Safari was a link to the Mac OS X code names.

You'd go on Safari to observe (not necessarily hunt) wild cats like Tigers, Lions, etc.

Also along with the binoculars for remote desktop, I thought they'd be going for a Safari theme throughout the OS, but it ended up going more space themed.

I guess you could say the OS (both Safari and space) fall into the exploration theme as a whole.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#53

Post by yen223 »

SimHacker wrote: post #49
Someone wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

What hasn't anyone developed a browser, and just called it "Browser"?

When Android first came out, its browser was called "Browser". I actually appreciated that.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#54

Post by philbo »

This bit surprised me somewhat:

'Not only had we gotten very used to calling it that, the string “Alexander” was all over the code and buried in its resources. So the engineering team wasn’t just curious about the real name, they were worried about correctly and completely changing the placeholder name at the last minute.'

Why would you litter a codebase with disparate string literals referring to a "placeholder name" rather than using a single resource file or a single #define?

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#55

Post by henrikschroder »

mmariani wrote: post #17

Great story. It shows that doesn't matter if you are Apple or a solo developer, product naming is hard. Actually, as the OP, I find coding easier. Nevertheless, we can't ship products with placeholder names. I have a little brainstorming process that goes like this: 1) List the name of all competitors that made into the business plan; // this is important mainly to avoid problems 2) List of nouns that evoke a basic u…

Ours is pretty much like that, with one more step: Google each candidate name. Those that get few hits or hits that are completely unrelated to the problem domain get a +1.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#56

Post by forrestthewoods »

pistoriusp wrote: post #10
augustl wrote: post #5

I 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 use coffee shops or espresso company names, often local to Seattle. The list is quite limitless. Zoka, Vivace, Rococo, Velton, Olympia, Lighthouse, Ladro, and so on it goes.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#57

Post by bni »

philbo wrote: post #54

This bit surprised me somewhat: 'Not only had we gotten very used to calling it that, the string “Alexander” was all over the code and buried in its resources. So the engineering team wasn’t just curious about the real name, they were worried about correctly and completely changing the placeholder name at the last minute.' Why would you litter a codebase with disparate string literals referring to a "placeholder name…

What makes you think it was string literals? Probably a lot of classes was prefixed with "Alex" or something similar. Folks at Apple, being perfectionists, of course could not live with the code name all over the source :-)

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#58

Post by bdash »

philbo wrote: post #54

This bit surprised me somewhat: 'Not only had we gotten very used to calling it that, the string “Alexander” was all over the code and buried in its resources. So the engineering team wasn’t just curious about the real name, they were worried about correctly and completely changing the placeholder name at the last minute.' Why would you litter a codebase with disparate string literals referring to a "placeholder name…

Resources such as nib files and help files aren't amenable to things like #defines. Filenames and build system metadata fall in to the same cateogry. The source code proper is a different story, but is also trivially updateable via sed or the like.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#60

Post by nicholassmith »

jballanc wrote: post #59

Just for some perspective, in my time at Apple "It doesn't suck" was usually the highest form of praise possible.

I've read that a few times in places, which is interesting on the face of it as in public the language surrounding Apple products is hyperbolic and overwhelmingly positive, and internally saying "well, it doesn't suck" is high praise. The duality of company presences.
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