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Coq mulls new name for programming language
- samatman 5y agoI was told that the name of Coq was a bit of French revenge, because the word bit(e) has the same meaning in French as cock does in English. So, as English computer scientists compelled their French colleagues to be vulgar when discussing computers, the French thought they might return the favor! Perhaps just start spelling it Coke?
- angry_octet 5y agoCoqe?
- samizdis 5y agoInteresting, and that's reflected in the alternative names discussion [1]: > Using the "coke" pronunciation, possibly written "Côq" Because Côq is an extremely addictive tool. In French, it would be pronounced with a closed "o" reminiscent of the "o" of "coke" in English. Good for those fond of playing with words, oh geez, these lines of high quality Côq made me so happy. [1] https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names
- moomin 5y agoInevitably, a major version release would be described as “New Coke” by its detractors.
- coldtea 5y ago>Coq also happens to sound like "cock," which while it means both "a male rooster" and "to tilt," can be used informally to refer to the male anatomy. And for some people, that deters community participation. So, they change a perfectly valid french name, lest they annoy American puritanism... Yah, 21st century...
- jjgreen 5y ago... yet they had a Dick Cheney as vice president
- croon 5y agoAnd the name was the least offensive part.
- bantunes 5y agoThis is reductive. Programming languages, for better or worse, are almost 100% in English. Having such a word as its name is not helpful to the project.
- phillc73 5y agoExcept where they aren't.[1] Mostly or overwhelmingly programming languages are written in English, but not 100%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English-based_programming_...
- chrisseaton 5y agoDid you miss the 'almost' in the comment you're replying to?
- mlang23 5y agoHeck, early version of basic for windows had translated function names. I dont know if MSFT is crazy enough to do that these days, but it was a major PITA and pretty hilarious back then.
- da39a3ee 5y agoThey said “almost”.
- angry_octet 5y agoThat's what I thought at first, but apparently they were completely aware of the double meaning and gleeful about it. In any case, it doesn't matter, because we don't need to keep having humiliating conversations about it, just change the damn name.
- p0ppe 5y agoTelling people you like LaTeX might also get you some funny looks.
- angry_octet 5y agoOnly if you pronounce it incorrectly.
- laputan_machine 5y agoBut in that case the 'X' is a chi, so it's more like 'Lay-tek' than 'Latex' ;)
- qznc 5y agoWhy don’t we start writing Laτέχ?
- YawningAngel 5y agoMost people can't easily type those characters
- majewsky 5y agoLet's make a petition to HN to support proper typesetting of the LaTeX logo when you input "\LaTeX".
- mrslave 5y agoI was ranked favorably in a job application once because I had used LaTeX to produce my CV, and had also listed `\LaTeX` (rendered nicely) under publishing & communication skills. You never know what's going to pique the hiring manager's interest. Turns out it gave him a bout of nostalgia for his days at university studying mathematics.
- globuous 5y agoOr searching « latex color red » on Google at work when you’re looking for how to color text for your paper ;p
- breakingcups 5y ago> One possible solution involves extending "Coq" to "Coquand," [...] Doesn't that just sound like cock-wand if pronounced by some?
- Ronson 5y agoI haven't heard that for decades and it made me laugh. I'd pronounce it cock-wand which is more difficult to take seriously than the original.
- jkhdigital 5y agoMy inner teenager is nodding approvingly
- mlang23 5y agoWhat a sad story. Fuck puritanism, fuck language police.
- Fiahil 5y agoFrom their wiki page (https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names https://github.com/coq/coq/wiki/Alternative-names): > Reason for discarding: Con is French slang for vulva. This will inevitably lead to categorical jokes about co-con aka... the problem we started with. > Reason for discarding: [...] Also consider the standard clam (coque) metaphor for female genitalia. > Reason for discarding: [...] A translation of the French word. Watch out: "rooster" is also slang for "penis". > Reason for discarding: [...] Even if one ignores that it apparently means “vagina” in Haitian Creole (as pointed out by Lélio), the fact that phonetically, it's apparently slang for “a communist” in French (as pointed out by Matthieu) should be a non-starter [...] > Reason for discarding: "peep" also has a strong sexual connotation in French. Should really be avoided. > Reason for discarding: "Gaule" can be definitely used to mean "erection" in French. Thank you for your hard and dedicated work ! :)
- JulianMorrison 5y agoFor the people decrying American puritanism, you're aiming at the wrong target. You should be aiming at American misogyny. The article gives the example of women being harassed for saying they were "working on Coq". It makes them an easier target for douchebros. Sadly, at the moment, that's a barrier to entry.
- ratww 5y agoSounds like the issue here is just the douchebros, instead of the name of the language. What we should be getting rid of is the douchebro behaviour. Also, are we gonna rename the "D" language because someone might make the exact same joke about it?
- JulianMorrison 5y agoI mean, you aren't wrong, but when your solution is "solve for the absolute victory of feminism" rather than "change a name" I have to wonder if you're being realistic.
- Bancakes 5y agoChange the name and keep the douchebags? Let's not sweep this under the rug, lest the rug become a hill.
- JulianMorrison 5y agoChange the name, because getting rid of misogyny is a longer term project that is still ongoing.
- AlexeyBelov 5y agoThe article doesn't give an example of this, it only says that it happened. It may be true (not hard to imagine), but it could be just made up completely.
- Doctor_Fegg 5y ago> This similarity has already led to some women turning away from Coq and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq Surely that should be covered by the CoC.
- gaze 5y agoDid you know that a robber can’t legally take any of your possessions without your consent?
- moomin 5y agoGotta love the way people on this thread ignore the actual experiences of actual people motivating this and invent “Puritanism”, “Offence”, “Language Police” and “Political Correctness” straw-men to complain about instead. Not everything is about your culture war.
- PedroBatista 5y agoCan you explain what actual experiences people had with coq/coc/cock?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- moomin 5y agoSo one that I saw on Twitter had a supervisor (M) saying to a student (F) they hadn’t previously met “So I hear you really like Coq.” No harassment intended, but plenty of awkwardness (including on the part of the supervisor after he’d heard what he’d said). Nothing major, but a) you can see how something like that could happen all the time and just be draining to deal with b) I don’t think changing the name is that major either.
- daneel_w 5y agoBut everything is about how offended you and others feel over the French word for rooster, which happens to sound like a completely different word in another language. Got it.
- thefz 5y ago> Not everything is about your culture war. Not everything is about America either.
- o_m 5y agoWhat about "Cog"? They visually look the same, but sound different.
- jkhdigital 5y ago“Oh no, not Mr. Big Cog!” https://conker.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Big_Cog https://conker.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Big_Cog
- qwerty456127 5y agoVery sad to see bullshit political correctness winning.
- vimacs2 5y agoHow is this "political correctness"? While I like silly and vulgar things, I don't think you need to be an SJW to find it annoying that every time you discuss your coding project with an English speaking or international team using Coq, everybody else erupts to a pile of giggles. It would probably be even more annoying if I was a women who used it.
- jkhdigital 5y agoLast line of the article: > Naming is hard. No pun intended. I refuse to believe that the pun was unintended, and it was beautiful. Give this reporter a cookie.
- themgt 5y agoYou'd have to be an absolute git to give your software project a funny/offensive name like that!
- da39a3ee 5y ago> This has been particularly evident in volunteer-based open source communities, where the need to formalize governance through codes of conduct has met with frequent resistance among people who resent the imposition of rules on a sphere where they previously acted without constraint. No, I resist it because it is not necessary: we can rely on human decency in open source without policing people with formal documents.
- mcphage 5y ago> we can rely on human decency in open source without policing people with formal documents I don't think that's true at all—neither on sexual subjects, nor on non-sexual subjects. Witness: the left pad debacle, Minecraft Forge, whatever is going on with Freenode, etc.
- da39a3ee 5y agoI guess I just mean that my open source projects will never have a "code of conduct". Clearly in the political climate that has obtained in recent years among educated sectors of western societies a lot of this stuff has been exaggerated.
- mcphage 5y agoThat seems to be about as good an idea as skipping a license, but you do you.
- lamontcg 5y ago> we can rely on human decency... you've got a bug here.
- selfhoster11 5y agoI approve of this change. As a male, this name seemed questionable well before the whole master vs slave etc nomenclature debate in CS. It's weird to retain a name that's clearly got negative connotations.
- da39a3ee 5y agoGiven that the authors in question are French, they are unlikely to be sympathetic to arguments predicated on the idea that the only language that matters is English. In fact it’s hard to think of a nationality less sympathetic to that idea.
- vimacs2 5y agoExcept nobody was arguing that. However, back in the world of reality, English is the most used language in programming and by such a large margin that it's laughable. It is a valid and practical problem that you are finding it difficult to constructively collaborate with 99% of the programming world thanks to the name - something that the French authors apparently completely recognise, hence why they're trying to come up with a good rebrand.
- JohnTClark 5y ago> "This similarity has already led to some women turning away from Coq and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq," That never happened. No one is interested in something but "turn away" because the name sound similar to cock. I can't imagine the following conversation student: "I am interested in calculus" professor: "you will have to work with coq" "I am not interested anymore". >getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq People usually do jokes with one another, how about you laugh and make a joke back. Stop taking yourself so serious and have some fun. And again, that never happened, no one was "harassed" because the name of what they are working on. > (Jasper Hugunin) A bit of a stretch, maybe not disqualifying, but as a native English speaker (and given the context of this page), Gallus reads a lot like "phallus" to me, which is again a name for male genitalia. I have nothing edit: > Coquito Reason for discarding: can have a violent meaning in some parts of Latin America.... And apparently in Colombia, Puero Rico, and Venzuela colloquial for "blow to the head with bare knuckles" (if I understand the seventh meaning here correctly: https://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/coquito https://es.wiktionary.org/wiki/coquito). They search for the seventh meaning in a word and discarded the word. In there quest to find the most unfunny word related to cock they do produce some funny text.
- AlexeyBelov 5y agoI'm inclined to agree that it likely didn't happen. Too often it's just a couple of people on Twitter (for example) getting offended for likes. Or sometimes it's just completely made up and repeated again and again as truth.
- DougN7 5y agoIt sounds vulgar to a vast section of the world that know English slang (even if they don’t know much more than that). Changing it is a good idea.
- toomanybeersies 5y agoI used to get outraged at "Social Justice Warriors" demanding we rename everything with the slightest connotation of political incorrectness. These days I'm too busy debating what colour we're going to paint the bike shed and shaving our herd of yaks to complain about the PC brigade forcing us to rename "blacklist" to "blocklist", which is actually more descriptive anyway. This week we've been debating about whether to enforce double quotes or single quotes. I'm so far past caring about this shit that you could rename our primary git branch to "black_lives_matter" and I wouldn't bat an eyelid. If it makes someone happy, good for them. I just want to write software. If I'm going to complain about naming, I'll complain about the >100 character long class names I keep finding in our codebase.
- Chris2048 5y agoTalking about people who "resent the imposition of rules on a sphere where they previously acted without constraint" without talking specifically about what those rules are: are they reasonable, or bullshit? This very often isn't about the mere presence of A CoC, but the fact that they often represent one persons[0] moral framework. [0] e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coraline_Ada_Ehmke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coraline_Ada_Ehmke