5 ms·

Definitely a bit off topic, so feel free to vote me into oblivion. Does anyone else get an almost visceral feeling of disgust most applications (or even words)

Definitely a bit off topic, so feel free to vote me into oblivion. Does anyone else get an almost visceral feeling of disgust most applications (or even words) that use K instead of C, or add a K just to fit the KDE motif? I really want to like KDE, but there is something stylistic about it that drives me up the wall. I'm asking not to insult anyone, but to see if anyone has an explanation of why I react this way. Maybe it will remain an unexplained idiosyncrasy.

pkaye 6y ago
Do you feel the same when Apple named everything with an "i" like iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iBook, iMac, etc?
- manofmanysmiles 6y ago
  No, the K bothers me more. The G in GNU projects bothers me a bit.
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    I guess you're not German then ;). The k looks very normal to me, but that's because many of the words spelled with c in english are spelled with k in German. I suspect this is also where it comes from (KDE originated in Germany IIRC)
jfax 6y ago
I agree with this, including GNU software that starts with "g". Actually to bringing this kinda into topic, Hugo itself is named (albeit, subtly) by the fact that it uses Go. I'm reminded of Rob Pike's polite reminder: https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/618357610287226880 https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/618357610287226880
sho_hn 6y ago
Note this is mostly a historic concern. KDE largely stopped doggedly naming new projects K-something over a decade ago. Yes, there's examples to the contrary, and of course there are major projects sensibly sticking by their already-established brands, but plenty of core projects don't follow this scheme anymore (obviously Plasma, for one). It's largely a relic of a time before interoperability-enabling standardization via freedesktop.org specs, when "k = will work well with your desktop" had much more utility to users. The Gnome crowd did the more or less the same thing with g, and also stopped. As others mentioned, plenty of other tech orgs have pulled branding moves like this, be it iSomething or "My Foo", and arguably those provided less actual utility. I would argue this should affect the relative levels of irksomeness. :-)
ognarb 6y ago
This is the old naming scheme, it is now hard to rename applications after they build their own reputation. Now KDE apps are trying to avoid Kname and either putting the k in a more elegant way or just avoid putting a k in the name. For example Elisa, KDE's new music player (https://elisa.kde.org https://elisa.kde.org), don't use a K in its name.

pkaye 6y ago

Do you feel the same when Apple named everything with an "i" like iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iBook, iMac, etc?

manofmanysmiles 6y ago
No, the K bothers me more. The G in GNU projects bothers me a bit.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  I guess you're not German then ;). The k looks very normal to me, but that's because many of the words spelled with c in english are spelled with k in German. I suspect this is also where it comes from (KDE originated in Germany IIRC)

jfax 6y ago

I agree with this, including GNU software that starts with "g". Actually to bringing this kinda into topic, Hugo itself is named (albeit, subtly) by the fact that it uses Go. I'm reminded of Rob Pike's polite reminder: https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/618357610287226880 https://twitter.com/rob_pike/status/618357610287226880

sho_hn 6y ago

Note this is mostly a historic concern. KDE largely stopped doggedly naming new projects K-something over a decade ago. Yes, there's examples to the contrary, and of course there are major projects sensibly sticking by their already-established brands, but plenty of core projects don't follow this scheme anymore (obviously Plasma, for one). It's largely a relic of a time before interoperability-enabling standardization via freedesktop.org specs, when "k = will work well with your desktop" had much more utility to users. The Gnome crowd did the more or less the same thing with g, and also stopped. As others mentioned, plenty of other tech orgs have pulled branding moves like this, be it iSomething or "My Foo", and arguably those provided less actual utility. I would argue this should affect the relative levels of irksomeness. :-)

ognarb 6y ago

This is the old naming scheme, it is now hard to rename applications after they build their own reputation. Now KDE apps are trying to avoid Kname and either putting the k in a more elegant way or just avoid putting a k in the name. For example Elisa, KDE's new music player (https://elisa.kde.org https://elisa.kde.org), don't use a K in its name.