5 ms·

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevan

If you can't think of a descriptive name for your tool or product, maybe you should pause, think on it, and resist the temptation to pick a completely irrelevant one-word noun. Call me a codger. I don't care. This crap was old ten years ago. It's still old.

GauntletWizard 6y ago
I would hardly call it irrelevant. The name means “Vodka helps you write creatively”, which is a sentiment Ernest Hemingway would have agreed with.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  hunter thompson would agree with weed, or cocaine - all of these aren't the right choice for an app name, it's clever, but lacks enough context to require enough active thinking to be jarring
- SBArbeit 6y ago
  I just assumed it was called Vodka because that's what I'd need to deal with anything Lisp-related. :-) I guess they could have called it "OG Kush" too...
- sedatk 6y ago
  As a matter of fact, I first thought the title was a metaphor like "there is no lack of creativity, only lack of vodka".
saeranv 6y ago
It's smart to have an irrelevant one-word noun name, it gives you the flexibility to pivot your product over time, without being tied to an overly-specific name.
- EpicEng 6y ago
  "It allows you to fail multiple times without changing the product name" Great.
  - andrewflnr 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you think you're saying, but rephrasing the benefit to include the word "fail" does not make it less beneficial.
    - EpicEng 6y ago
      I'm saying that choosing a nonsense name for your product with the thought that, should you have to "pivot" (aka failing), you'll be able to keep the name, is brain dead. Besides, this is a programming language; what exactly are you going to "pivot" to?
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    How do you think progress is made if not by failing and trying again? and again, and again.... etc. Of course, you're the "epic" engineer, so I bet you're really good at everything and never fail, right?
    - dang 6y ago
      Please don't cross into personal attack in Hacker News comments. We're trying for a different sort of conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - lambda_obrien 6y ago
        Yes my point would have been better taken without that, sorry, his comment rubbed me the wrong way.
qwerty456127 6y ago
It's hard to recall how many (probably hundreds) of projects (from humble command line utilities to social movements) I have imagined but never started and ultimately forgotten just because I couldn't come up with how to name the file/folder for them. Perhaps some could change my life or the world but now they're lost to oblivion. Guess what's I am doing right now? Googling for a good generator of cool-looking gibberish words which would provide a steady source of meaningless names for my projects. I would rather use UUIDs if they were not so hard to read and memorize. I also love my project names to sound ironical so nobody would take them too serious, expect much and judge too hard. E.g. I actually find "git", "shit"[1], and "gimp" perfect names (whoever doesn't know - try find out what do "git" and "gimp" words mean besides the respective software products). Anything can be renamed (or left as it is) once you grow in confidence the actual project can probably succeed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303710
- waterhouse 6y ago
  In my earlier years, I tended to use swearwords, exclamations, etc ("meh" and "nub" are still gotos) to name functions that I wasn't exactly sure what I would do with. If they were worth keeping beyond a short programming session (which was usually not the case), then I gave them a real name later.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Try this: curl -s -X POST "https://api.gfycat.com/v1/gfycats" -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq .gfyname -r I call it "gfyname" and stick it in ~/bin. Then you can do `while true; do gfyname; done` AchingVengefulDungenesscrab AgitatedLastingBorzoi FairImmaculateGelding WeightyInsistentJellyfish UnevenHopefulDungbeetle UntidyWelloffBellfrog PracticalDismalCat UnkemptWebbedGreendarnerdragonfly FaintHauntingFairybluebird RichPerkyDogfish MelodicRecentBarracuda GenerousBronzeBarasinga QueasyFewHarlequinbug UnrulyFaintApisdorsatalaboriosa Melodic Barracuda isn't terrible. Weighty. Dismal Cat. And so on. Looks like it sometimes returns `null` now, which is a shame. It used to be rock solid. It's nice for generating names for your temp files.
  - 6y ago
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Searching "Vodka coding environment" works fine. "Vodka coding" also works fine. Both of those show this project in the top results. Your critique can also be aimed at yahoo, google, amazon, and so on. All of those are irrelevant one word nouns. Go is probably the worst offender, and yet people just search golang and it works fine.
- jolux 6y ago
  Google is a brand name, the noun is googol.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    It’s a typo, actually. They intended googol and wound up with google.
- mjh2539 6y ago
  "Yahoo" is nonsense, I agree; "google" is relevant in the sense that they index a lot of websites; 'amazon' hearkens to the myriad variety of different books they sold.
  - mikro2nd 6y ago
    And here I thought "Amazon" referred to all the trees that had to get cut down to make those cardboard boxes they use for shipping... ;)
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    Yahoo is not nonsense - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yahoo https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yahoo google is nonsense as it's a misspelling of googol
    - mjh2539 6y ago
      I'm going to pivot. Here's the hierarchy of naming methods from best to worst: succinct + relevant > relevant > succinct + neologism > neologism > irrelevant existing word
msla 6y ago
Hm. I guess that means the Windows project is doomed. Good to know.
- kfarr 6y ago
  Although in fairness Windows described some of its functionality. Whereas Apple on the other hand...
dmos62 6y ago
I think that you might overthinking the titles. If you let go for a moment, often you notice that there's some point to a seemingly random name. In this case I take it as a jest about the influence of hard alcohol on creativity and writing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mac01021 6y ago
I don't think you're completely wrong but, taken to the extreme and applied to all products and companies, your policy would lead to a world where the field of computing would be full of sentences like "Are you using the Jobs-Wozniak Computer Company Web Browser or the Gates Software Corporation Web Browser?". And that might be a bit much.

GauntletWizard 6y ago

I would hardly call it irrelevant. The name means “Vodka helps you write creatively”, which is a sentiment Ernest Hemingway would have agreed with.

refulgentis 6y ago
hunter thompson would agree with weed, or cocaine - all of these aren't the right choice for an app name, it's clever, but lacks enough context to require enough active thinking to be jarring
SBArbeit 6y ago
I just assumed it was called Vodka because that's what I'd need to deal with anything Lisp-related. :-) I guess they could have called it "OG Kush" too...
sedatk 6y ago
As a matter of fact, I first thought the title was a metaphor like "there is no lack of creativity, only lack of vodka".

saeranv 6y ago

It's smart to have an irrelevant one-word noun name, it gives you the flexibility to pivot your product over time, without being tied to an overly-specific name.

EpicEng 6y ago
"It allows you to fail multiple times without changing the product name" Great.
- andrewflnr 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you think you're saying, but rephrasing the benefit to include the word "fail" does not make it less beneficial.
  - EpicEng 6y ago
    I'm saying that choosing a nonsense name for your product with the thought that, should you have to "pivot" (aka failing), you'll be able to keep the name, is brain dead. Besides, this is a programming language; what exactly are you going to "pivot" to?
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  How do you think progress is made if not by failing and trying again? and again, and again.... etc. Of course, you're the "epic" engineer, so I bet you're really good at everything and never fail, right?
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack in Hacker News comments. We're trying for a different sort of conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - lambda_obrien 6y ago
      Yes my point would have been better taken without that, sorry, his comment rubbed me the wrong way.

qwerty456127 6y ago

It's hard to recall how many (probably hundreds) of projects (from humble command line utilities to social movements) I have imagined but never started and ultimately forgotten just because I couldn't come up with how to name the file/folder for them. Perhaps some could change my life or the world but now they're lost to oblivion. Guess what's I am doing right now? Googling for a good generator of cool-looking gibberish words which would provide a steady source of meaningless names for my projects. I would rather use UUIDs if they were not so hard to read and memorize. I also love my project names to sound ironical so nobody would take them too serious, expect much and judge too hard. E.g. I actually find "git", "shit"[1], and "gimp" perfect names (whoever doesn't know - try find out what do "git" and "gimp" words mean besides the respective software products). Anything can be renamed (or left as it is) once you grow in confidence the actual project can probably succeed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303710 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22303710

waterhouse 6y ago
In my earlier years, I tended to use swearwords, exclamations, etc ("meh" and "nub" are still gotos) to name functions that I wasn't exactly sure what I would do with. If they were worth keeping beyond a short programming session (which was usually not the case), then I gave them a real name later.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
Try this: curl -s -X POST "https://api.gfycat.com/v1/gfycats" -H "Content-Type: application/json" | jq .gfyname -r I call it "gfyname" and stick it in ~/bin. Then you can do `while true; do gfyname; done` AchingVengefulDungenesscrab AgitatedLastingBorzoi FairImmaculateGelding WeightyInsistentJellyfish UnevenHopefulDungbeetle UntidyWelloffBellfrog PracticalDismalCat UnkemptWebbedGreendarnerdragonfly FaintHauntingFairybluebird RichPerkyDogfish MelodicRecentBarracuda GenerousBronzeBarasinga QueasyFewHarlequinbug UnrulyFaintApisdorsatalaboriosa Melodic Barracuda isn't terrible. Weighty. Dismal Cat. And so on. Looks like it sometimes returns `null` now, which is a shame. It used to be rock solid. It's nice for generating names for your temp files.
- 6y ago

sillysaurusx 6y ago

Searching "Vodka coding environment" works fine. "Vodka coding" also works fine. Both of those show this project in the top results. Your critique can also be aimed at yahoo, google, amazon, and so on. All of those are irrelevant one word nouns. Go is probably the worst offender, and yet people just search golang and it works fine.

jolux 6y ago
Google is a brand name, the noun is googol.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  It’s a typo, actually. They intended googol and wound up with google.
mjh2539 6y ago
"Yahoo" is nonsense, I agree; "google" is relevant in the sense that they index a lot of websites; 'amazon' hearkens to the myriad variety of different books they sold.
- mikro2nd 6y ago
  And here I thought "Amazon" referred to all the trees that had to get cut down to make those cardboard boxes they use for shipping... ;)
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  Yahoo is not nonsense - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yahoo https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yahoo google is nonsense as it's a misspelling of googol
  - mjh2539 6y ago
    I'm going to pivot. Here's the hierarchy of naming methods from best to worst: succinct + relevant > relevant > succinct + neologism > neologism > irrelevant existing word

msla 6y ago

Hm. I guess that means the Windows project is doomed. Good to know.

kfarr 6y ago
Although in fairness Windows described some of its functionality. Whereas Apple on the other hand...

dmos62 6y ago

I think that you might overthinking the titles. If you let go for a moment, often you notice that there's some point to a seemingly random name. In this case I take it as a jest about the influence of hard alcohol on creativity and writing.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mac01021 6y ago

I don't think you're completely wrong but, taken to the extreme and applied to all products and companies, your policy would lead to a world where the field of computing would be full of sentences like "Are you using the Jobs-Wozniak Computer Company Web Browser or the Gates Software Corporation Web Browser?". And that might be a bit much.