4 ms·

On the one-hand I feel for the developer who originally named his language "Go." On the other hand I've never heard of it... Who does HN think is right in this

On the one-hand I feel for the developer who originally named his language "Go." On the other hand I've never heard of it... Who does HN think is right in this case and why?

gaius 16y ago
Google has the mightiest search engine ever created and they couldn't check there wasn't already a programming language by that name? It would just have been polite.
- gjm11 16y ago
  Or: Google has the mightiest search engine ever created and they didn't find his language when they checked? It must have been so obscure that you can't really blame them.
jkkramer 16y ago
I think they both chose a terrible name.
- protomyth 16y ago
  There are some great language names for search, but go isn't one of them. Perl and PHP seem to work really well. Ruby and Python sure don't.
  - btilly 16y ago
    In Perl's case that was quite intentional. Larry Wall used grep over a Usenet feed to be sure that he would catch all references to Perl. (He did this before Kibo popularized the technique.) He therefore wanted a name that (among other things) would have very few false positives.
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    Worse still: J, K, R, Io, T. At least with Python and Ruby, you can google for "python programming" or "ruby programming". Also, some forums don't allow you to search for single-letter names.
    - mahmud 16y ago
      Ummmm, C?
      - silentbicycle 16y ago
        True, but C's past the critical mass where googling for just "C" is likely to get you info about the programming language. 3 of the top 10 results (including #2) are about C programming. Most of the rest are about Citigroup, which has the stock symbol 'C'. (Oddly, Cookie Monster is missing.)
- jacoblyles 16y ago
  "Issue 9" would be an improvement.
  - wmf 16y ago
    From the people who brought you Plan 9.
- huherto 16y ago
  I think the guy is just playing victim. He was very lucky and he has gotten a lot of attention that he didn`t have before. So he already won. On the other hand google was unlucky. They lost on public relations on this issue.
muuh-gnu 16y ago
I see this as a sort of a trademark issue, even though both probably dont have a Go trademark. The guy may have been the first to "take" the name, but what he did not do is to be successful enough with it to earn a de facto trademark. Basically nobody knows his Go, so there is no trademark. And without a trademark, legal or de facto, you cant claim exclusive rights to a name. A trademark (again, legal or de facto) violation would have occured here if google knowingly took the name Go to gain an advantage from the (non-existing) good reputation this guy built around his Go. But they didnt, since their Go, by the virtue of Googles impact alone, probably got more brand awareness in the first hour of the first presentation, than this guy's Go in 10 years. Does this mean that the "big guys" can simply take over names from the small guys? Yes and no. Yes, because if you want to protect a name, protect it legally, as everybody else does. Theres a legal mechanism for that. And No, because the guy still can keep his name, Google didnt trademark it and then sued him. The world is large enough for 2 (and more) Go's. Just being the first to take a name for some obscure personal mini-project nobody else cares about _should_ not mean that now nobody can use the same name, worldwide, ever again.
anigbrowl 16y ago
I'm torn. You can't copyright names and such, those are trademarks. And while he has tried to defend his mark publicly, and could possibly register it retroactively (in the US, don't know about overseas), his defense hasn't been very energetic. The book he mentions is a self-published one and the sad fact is that the language has gotten little traction since first announcement in 2003. So on the one hand, I feel that one can't possibly satisfy everyone, and if you're going to snag a desirable name like 'Go' for your product, it's up to you to think ahead about how to preserve your rights of ownership. For example 'Go' could be a great name for a brand of shoes or a bicycle, but if you don't launch an actual product people can buy and associate the name with it, then you can't complain too much when Nike or someone tries the same thing later. Go author Frank McCabe's own homepage [1] doesn't exactly ddraw attention to the project. On the other hand, Google has IMHO been a bit heavy-handed in defending their own mark, as when they picked a fight with 'Groggle' an Australian startup which aimed to help users find retailers of particular alcoholic drinks (grog being a synonym for booze down under), though both the site and dispute seem to be on the back burner right now. 1. http://homepage.mac.com/frankmccabe/Menu2.html http://homepage.mac.com/frankmccabe/Menu2.html A nicer and inexpensive solution (in case anyone@google is reading) would be a link on the Go! homepage saying 'If you're looking for the Go logic programming language by McCabe and Clark, click here.' To be honest, I think the unfortunate naming overlap has generated more attention for the Go language than it would ever have acquired on its own.

On the one-hand I feel for the developer who originally named his language "Go." On the other hand I've never heard of it... Who does HN think is right in this case and why?

gaius 16y ago

Google has the mightiest search engine ever created and they couldn't check there wasn't already a programming language by that name? It would just have been polite.

gjm11 16y ago
Or: Google has the mightiest search engine ever created and they didn't find his language when they checked? It must have been so obscure that you can't really blame them.

jkkramer 16y ago

I think they both chose a terrible name.

protomyth 16y ago
There are some great language names for search, but go isn't one of them. Perl and PHP seem to work really well. Ruby and Python sure don't.
- btilly 16y ago
  In Perl's case that was quite intentional. Larry Wall used grep over a Usenet feed to be sure that he would catch all references to Perl. (He did this before Kibo popularized the technique.) He therefore wanted a name that (among other things) would have very few false positives.
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  Worse still: J, K, R, Io, T. At least with Python and Ruby, you can google for "python programming" or "ruby programming". Also, some forums don't allow you to search for single-letter names.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    Ummmm, C?
    - silentbicycle 16y ago
      True, but C's past the critical mass where googling for just "C" is likely to get you info about the programming language. 3 of the top 10 results (including #2) are about C programming. Most of the rest are about Citigroup, which has the stock symbol 'C'. (Oddly, Cookie Monster is missing.)
jacoblyles 16y ago
"Issue 9" would be an improvement.
- wmf 16y ago
  From the people who brought you Plan 9.
huherto 16y ago
I think the guy is just playing victim. He was very lucky and he has gotten a lot of attention that he didn`t have before. So he already won. On the other hand google was unlucky. They lost on public relations on this issue.

muuh-gnu 16y ago

I see this as a sort of a trademark issue, even though both probably dont have a Go trademark. The guy may have been the first to "take" the name, but what he did not do is to be successful enough with it to earn a de facto trademark. Basically nobody knows his Go, so there is no trademark. And without a trademark, legal or de facto, you cant claim exclusive rights to a name. A trademark (again, legal or de facto) violation would have occured here if google knowingly took the name Go to gain an advantage from the (non-existing) good reputation this guy built around his Go. But they didnt, since their Go, by the virtue of Googles impact alone, probably got more brand awareness in the first hour of the first presentation, than this guy's Go in 10 years. Does this mean that the "big guys" can simply take over names from the small guys? Yes and no. Yes, because if you want to protect a name, protect it legally, as everybody else does. Theres a legal mechanism for that. And No, because the guy still can keep his name, Google didnt trademark it and then sued him. The world is large enough for 2 (and more) Go's. Just being the first to take a name for some obscure personal mini-project nobody else cares about _should_ not mean that now nobody can use the same name, worldwide, ever again.

anigbrowl 16y ago

I'm torn. You can't copyright names and such, those are trademarks. And while he has tried to defend his mark publicly, and could possibly register it retroactively (in the US, don't know about overseas), his defense hasn't been very energetic. The book he mentions is a self-published one and the sad fact is that the language has gotten little traction since first announcement in 2003. So on the one hand, I feel that one can't possibly satisfy everyone, and if you're going to snag a desirable name like 'Go' for your product, it's up to you to think ahead about how to preserve your rights of ownership. For example 'Go' could be a great name for a brand of shoes or a bicycle, but if you don't launch an actual product people can buy and associate the name with it, then you can't complain too much when Nike or someone tries the same thing later. Go author Frank McCabe's own homepage [1] doesn't exactly ddraw attention to the project. On the other hand, Google has IMHO been a bit heavy-handed in defending their own mark, as when they picked a fight with 'Groggle' an Australian startup which aimed to help users find retailers of particular alcoholic drinks (grog being a synonym for booze down under), though both the site and dispute seem to be on the back burner right now. 1. http://homepage.mac.com/frankmccabe/Menu2.html http://homepage.mac.com/frankmccabe/Menu2.html A nicer and inexpensive solution (in case anyone@google is reading) would be a link on the Go! homepage saying 'If you're looking for the Go logic programming language by McCabe and Clark, click here.' To be honest, I think the unfortunate naming overlap has generated more attention for the Go language than it would ever have acquired on its own.