4 ms·

The semantic space of software project names is filling up while simultaneously contracting. It's time to accept that all names going forward are going to have

• Karunamon 6y ago
  It's significantly less forgivable when it's another project in the same category of software.
• edoceo 6y ago
  Like that dude who had a go project that bowled over by Google Golang E: found it! https://github.com/golang/go/issues/9 https://github.com/golang/go/issues/9
  • mindcrime 6y ago
    To me, that incident was one of the first times I really started thinking "Google really have gone evil". I know, I know... it's "just" a name of a programming language. I don't care: it's the principle of the thing. The name was taken, and the only correct thing for Google to do when he stepped forward, was to change the name. That they chose not to really tarnished their image in my eyes, and still does to this day. It's a shame that the other guy wasn't in a position to / willing to / whatever, sue the pants off of Google at the time.
    • Igelau 6y ago
      Both names are terrible!
      • girvo 6y ago
        Ironically hard to google, hah. "Golang" is a bit naff, and doesn't seem to pick up everything, at least last time I was deep in Go-land
    • pmontra 6y ago
      They eventually closed the issue with "Status changed to Unfortunate."
    • rschoultz 6y ago
      It is quite a stretch to begin thinking of a company as having turned evil because of that issue. As a minor detail but nonetheless I think makes a difference, the name of the other language was "Go!", not "Go". That makes the similarity in line with C#, C, C--, C++ and F, F#, F* and several others. Yes in some cases these languages are inspired by the others and in some cases not.
      • vokep 6y ago
        Because the only way this whole thing went down the way it did is if either A) nobody did the due diligence of checking existing projects with similar names (so negligent as to be evil) or B) they did the due diligence, found his language and decided "well he probably doesn't have the resources to be any sort of issue for us" directly considering the existence of others only for personal gain with no consideration for consequences for others (straight up evil)
  • keeganpoppen 6y ago
    man, mccabe's snarky response to that first guy who immediately replies "references?" to his initial post (ah yes, classic HN "citation needed" guy in the flesh) is hilarious. i want to tell a bunch of google engineers who unrepentantly stole my programming language's name to go "google (sic)" the book i already wrote on it too =`(. i'm sure that went wayyyy over that dude's head, but i'm here for your 11 year-old snark, mr. mccabe =) oh man, just noticed that the bug was immediately closed and marked "unfortunate"... how douchey is that? unfortunate for mr. mccabe, i guess, that he got in the flight path of the google Dont Be Evil TM 747 jumbo jet (lol).
• yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  I don't mind overlapping names as long as they're in a different name space, but it looks like these are both some form of terminal emulator program, so I don't know how you would reasonably disambiguate them.