I think the problem is that a lot of programmers will assume that you're trying to use intellectual violence[1] against them. To protect themselves from feelin

I think the problem is that a lot of programmers will assume that you're trying to use intellectual violence[1] against them. To protect themselves from feeling ignorant, they shift the blame onto you. It's unfortunate, but I don't know that there's any way around it. Not everyone understands abstractions like K and T combinators. I think your choice is between: 1) "dumbing" it down or 2) letting some people be intimidated. In the end, remember that it's your open source library. If people feel so strongly against those names, they can fork you. [1] http://sourcemaking.com/antipatterns/intellectual-violence http://sourcemaking.com/antipatterns/intellectual-violence