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When I first heard the name "Safari"

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Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#91

Post by nemoto »

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.

You could steal ideas from Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and several other Distro for giving codename to their release.

For example, in Debian, they take a character name in Toy Story for their codename. In Ubuntu, they take an animal name in alphabetical order.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#92

Post by gilgoomesh »

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

If I have to work on another project named after Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben, I'll quit this damn company!

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#93

Post by vacri »

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

Characters from Bananaman. Not my choice, and I can't wait for the list to exhaust... though I like the idea of calling the devs VM test server 'zookeeper'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananaman

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#94

Post by sdoering »

dugmartin wrote: post #46
vetler wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's always Finnish lakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_in_Finland Might be difficult to pronounce for some, though.

I've used this list multiple times for personal project codenames: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rivers_of_the_Americas

Funny. I use mythological figures. Right now it's "metatron", and "delphi"...

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#95

Post by pretoriusB »

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…

Well, the progression should be:

Navigator -> Explorer -> Konqueror

With the order the arrive at a new found / colonized land.

And then you just go there for Safari.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#96

Post by alanctgardner2 »

vacri wrote: post #93
pistoriusp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Characters from Bananaman. Not my choice, and I can't wait for the list to exhaust... though I like the idea of calling the devs VM test server 'zookeeper'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananaman

The Apache foundation beat you to it!

http://zookeeper.apache.org/

It's actually a clever name for what they're doing

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#97

Post by JasonFruit »

namank wrote: post #6
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 have designated an in-prog folder and call it 'dev'. Everything in dev is strictly modifiable.

Working in a folder called dev feels wrong to me. It's like having a folder called 'bin' that is a trash bin.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#98

Post by jorde »

vetler wrote: post #36
pistoriusp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's always Finnish lakes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_in_Finland Might be difficult to pronounce for some, though.

These are so bad for a software project that they might even work for a codename. And this coming from a Finn.

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#99

Post by SimHacker »

acheron wrote: post #83
SimHacker wrote: post #44

At Maxis, we didn't arrive at the totally obvious name The Sims until very late in development. At first there was the secret development name, Project X, but everybody had a Project X, and we certainly couldn't ship with that. Then there was Jamie's obvious name, Dollhouse, which was quite descriptive, but boys would hate it. Then there was Will's quirky name, Super Happy Friends Home, which only the Japanese would…

I seem to remember hearing it was going to be called "SimHouse" at one point. "Super Happy Friends Home" is excellent, but yeah, I think "The Sims" worked out for the best. :)

Oh yeah, that sounds familiar! But that DEFINITELY was not the legendary name we all forgot. SimHouse and a few names like that were floated around, but they were't very exciting or apt, since the focus evolved from the architecture to the people.

The big problem was that nobody had any idea what players would think of it, so we just kept developing it and playing it and changing the design, while wondering about what it was all about.

There was one terrible phase we went through, trying to frame it like a simulated situation comedy, complete with a laugh track. That resulted in the first characters being named Edith and Archie (and I named the visual programming tool "Edith" for Edit House).

But fortunately the idea of simulating a TV show was eventually flushed down the toilet. It just took a few weeks to walk all the way to the bathroom. ;(

I was rooting for a weird name like "Perky Pat Layouts", based on Philip K Dick's book, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, which had an uncanny creepy plot about adults on drugs playing together with physical miniaturized doll houses in order to enter a shared virtual reality. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?bnum=577 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsN... But EA didn't like the idea of selling CAN-D...

I've put up some old design documents here: http://www.scribd.com/collections/4050497/The-Sims

This "Happy Friends Home" initial proposal from October 2 1996 is pretty funny, and captures the essence: http://www.scribd.com/doc/117483854/The-Sims-Happy-Friends-H...

Re: When I first heard the name "Safari"

#100

Post by FigBug »

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've gotten asked a lot where the name Miranda IM came from and I honestly have no idea. I was creating a new solution in Visual Studio and I needed a name. I remember it took under 10 minutes to come up with, I was browsing a bunch of name lists and I came across 'Miranda' and I thought that sure is a strange / unusual name, I'll use that. Turns out it's a fairly common name. I still think it's a good name for the product.

I remember when I was working on ACDSee, the original author said, "If I knew it was going to become popular, I would have picked a better name." The company originally made catalog software, and a Co-op student made ACDSee as a side project. It's sustained the company for almost 20 years.

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