3 ms·

You should not be surprised. Choosing 'fun' names is subjective. This is a tool, not a disney ride. Not everything needs to trigger dopamine rushes and it's ok

You should not be surprised. Choosing 'fun' names is subjective. This is a tool, not a disney ride. Not everything needs to trigger dopamine rushes and it's ok to have clear, straightforward names in software, seeing as naming things is hard.

palata 4y ago
Personally I don't want fun names, but I wish people used unique, writable, pronounceable names. Try to search for "camera" and see if you find this project. On the other hand, v4l2 is pretty unique. If all text editors are called "TextEditor", maybe the name says what it is, but the name is useless. For a company, you just use the company name ("Microsoft Word", assuming that the company name is unique enough), but for an open source project...
- arbitrage 4y ago
  Your argument is one heck of a strawman. Why on earth would you use a search engine to search for "camera" and be disappointed that libcamera didn't make the front page of your results? Searching for "lib camera", "libcamera", or "camera lib" returns this project as the top result.
  - palata 4y ago
    Sorry I meant it as a general comment for project names, not for this one in particular. And it is just my preference: given that "names that say what it does" don't really help me discriminate projects in general, I feel like "unique names" would be better. And if, like many company, a ton of money will be put into infinite brainstorming sessions by people with a good salary, I feel like maybe just going for a fun, unique name would be cheaper and not less effective. "Apple" does not return the fruit in the top results, but I wouldn't say it's a good name for a new project in 2022. Same for "word", I wouldn't advise you call your project like this, even if the top results are "Microsoft Word" and nothing related to the actual meaning of the word. I come from an industry where everyone uses the same prefixes/suffixes (related to the industry) together with names that "mean something". As a result, it's never really unique, and the only way to differentiate them is to always name them together with the company name. There is one in particular where the company name says what their product does, and it is similar to another product. For that one I _always_ need to Google it and go check the geographical location of both companies, because that's how I differentiate them: the names (and in this case the company name) do not help me.

palata 4y ago

Personally I don't want fun names, but I wish people used unique, writable, pronounceable names. Try to search for "camera" and see if you find this project. On the other hand, v4l2 is pretty unique. If all text editors are called "TextEditor", maybe the name says what it is, but the name is useless. For a company, you just use the company name ("Microsoft Word", assuming that the company name is unique enough), but for an open source project...

arbitrage 4y ago
Your argument is one heck of a strawman. Why on earth would you use a search engine to search for "camera" and be disappointed that libcamera didn't make the front page of your results? Searching for "lib camera", "libcamera", or "camera lib" returns this project as the top result.
- palata 4y ago
  Sorry I meant it as a general comment for project names, not for this one in particular. And it is just my preference: given that "names that say what it does" don't really help me discriminate projects in general, I feel like "unique names" would be better. And if, like many company, a ton of money will be put into infinite brainstorming sessions by people with a good salary, I feel like maybe just going for a fun, unique name would be cheaper and not less effective. "Apple" does not return the fruit in the top results, but I wouldn't say it's a good name for a new project in 2022. Same for "word", I wouldn't advise you call your project like this, even if the top results are "Microsoft Word" and nothing related to the actual meaning of the word. I come from an industry where everyone uses the same prefixes/suffixes (related to the industry) together with names that "mean something". As a result, it's never really unique, and the only way to differentiate them is to always name them together with the company name. There is one in particular where the company name says what their product does, and it is similar to another product. For that one I _always_ need to Google it and go check the geographical location of both companies, because that's how I differentiate them: the names (and in this case the company name) do not help me.