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Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

lr0.org

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

#71

Post by 9rx »

wat10000 wrote: post #62
9rx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you didn't already know, what do you think a tool called a "combine" does? Combine things? Nope. Its purpose is to separate things... Its not just the software industry.

More to the point, what does a John Deere S7 600 do, or a 310 G-Tier, or a Z515E ZTrak? Emacs is an editor. That part is descriptive: an editor edits. The product name is not expected to describe what the product is. The general product category is what does that.

> The product name is not expected to describe what the product is.

There are some exceptions, but the agriculture machinery industry has actually gotten pretty good at making the names useful, with reasonable consistency across brands. S7 600: 600 tells that it is a class 6 combine, which is a value farmers understand as it pertains to the combine's capacity. For tractors, the John Deere 8R 230 sees 8 indicate a large row-crop frame, and 230 indicates a 230 HP engine. A New Holland T7.180 is, you guessed it, a medium row-crop frame with a 180 HP engine.

It may look like nothing to outsiders, but there is a lot of useful information encoded in there once you know what to look for.

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

#72

Post by scoopdewoop »

> programming shifted from corporate mainframe work to the community builders > which is good

but then:

> Our field deserves better than a zoo of random nouns masquerading as professional nomenclature

Okay? So is this professional nomenclature or the work of community builders?

I think: everyone should code, it should not be an elitist profession, we don't need to all accommodate busy professionals, i'm fine with corporate users having to say my stupid package name at work.

> Your fun has externalities. Every person who encounters your “fun” name pays a small tax. Across the industry, these taxes compound into significant waste

Someone please get this guy a bong rip.

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

#73

Post by indymike »

hyperpape wrote: post #22
lr0 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. You don't name by category, you can name by function or approach. PostgreSQL isn't "Generic SQL Database 47" it's the successor to Ingres (Post-Ingres-SQL). If your "LLM wrapper" does nothing distinctive worth naming, maybe don't publish it. But if it specifically handles streaming, call it something like "llm-stream-client." If it focuses on prompt templating, "prompt-template-engine." The name encodes t…

> PostgreSQL isn't "Generic SQL Database 47" it's the successor to Ingres (Post-Ingres-SQL). Indeed. This helps me know that I'm using a database more modern than Ingres. I chose not to use Oracle or SQL Server because they might have predated Ingres. Just one question: what's Ingres, and why do I care about it? Of course, I don't, which makes Postgres no more useful of a name than "fluffnutz" or "hooxup". That said,…

Sometimes names have great value at the beginning of the project. In this case it explains exactly what the project is and will be... That said, marketing decisions like naming a product often don't age well.

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

#75

Post by indymike »

groby_b wrote: post #56

Wait till you work in a corporate environment, where Project Fuzzy Mustard triggered a violation of the ElastoFish metric in the Yellow Hills subsystem, leading to a Code Mild Lavender with a side of Pink Sprinkles.

I worked in one that had lettuce, tomato and celery in the stack.

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

#76

Post by bgbntty2 »

lr0 wrote: post #21
jameshart wrote: post #15

> naming things after random nouns, mythological creatures, or random favorite fictional characters is somehow acceptable professional practice. This would be career suicide in virtually any other technical field. Really? Have you specced a microprocessor lately? Seen what pharmaceuticals are called? How polymer compound materials get named?

The "Raptor Lake" codename in microprocessors is internal, the product ships with systematic designation. Engineers spec chips by model numbers that encode generation, tier, and performance class. In Pharmaceuticals, Doctors prescribe "sildenafil," not "Viagra." The generic name describes chemical structure. Brand names are marketing for consumers, not professional nomenclature. Mythology in chemistry/astronomy has c…

> Doctors prescribe "sildenafil," not "Viagra".

Depends on the location, I guess. I've had doctors prescribe trade names, which I don't understand if there are alternatives with the same dosage, route of administration and similar inactive ingredients. Not even talking about the "do not substitute" prescriptions which are also based on dubious information most of the time.

As for "sildenafil" - I don't think generic names are usually meaningful. Usually the suffix relates to the category of the drug, but the first letters seem as random as the letters in trade names. I could imagine a world where the generic name is viagrafil and the trade name is Silden.

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

#77

Post by sophrosyne42 »

lr0 wrote: post #21
jameshart wrote: post #15

> naming things after random nouns, mythological creatures, or random favorite fictional characters is somehow acceptable professional practice. This would be career suicide in virtually any other technical field. Really? Have you specced a microprocessor lately? Seen what pharmaceuticals are called? How polymer compound materials get named?

The "Raptor Lake" codename in microprocessors is internal, the product ships with systematic designation. Engineers spec chips by model numbers that encode generation, tier, and performance class. In Pharmaceuticals, Doctors prescribe "sildenafil," not "Viagra." The generic name describes chemical structure. Brand names are marketing for consumers, not professional nomenclature. Mythology in chemistry/astronomy has c…

Naming schemes in consumer marketing serve a function. They are easily identifiable, unique, and memorable. All of these properties serve to identify the thing by associating a unique name with a unique set of services/function/effects on use.

Medical and chemical terminology is built on the history of latinate terms and compounds whose simples follow the same pattern. Latinate terms, I might add, which reference mythical, fantastical, or unusual things. Consider the planet Mercury, for example. The only difference? The centuries of time it took for scientific evolution to turn these unique names into a taxonomical language with its own logic.

There is no such taxonomy for computer science. But in the course of the evolution of such a taxonomy, it will be built out of the mess of names like the ones we like to use for our programs and tools like Rust, Ocaml (notice combination of interesting and technical), git, npm, bun, ada, scipy, etc etc.

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

#78

Post by zcw100 »

Why does it have to be all or nothing? How about a clever name or two for marketing that stands out and doesn't get lost in a sentence "I'm not asking you to search, I'm asking you to use the search command" but not obnoxiously over done where everything is named after some Norse god or some other silliness.
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