4 ms·
If a name really isn’t such a big deal, then it shouldn’t be a big deal to change it to something else that wasn’t already taken. If there’s resistance to that
by ModernMech 4y ago
If a name really isn’t such a big deal, then it shouldn’t be a big deal to change it to something else that wasn’t already taken. If there’s resistance to that idea, then maybe names are a big deal after all.
For a language dev, the name of the language is all you really own about it. These days, developers expect their languages and tools to be free, and of course open source and permissively licensed. The name and logo of the language is really the only IP most PL devs actually fully control, and costs actual money and time to maintain (registering and defending trademarks, domains, etc.)
To just step on names like Google has repeatedly done shows a crass disregard for what independent language devs go through.
- alpaca128 4y agoWe are talking about "rune", a common English noun. It's not like Google called it Zig or Jai. And how many github repos are just called "Lisp"? Google isn't exactly innovative with their naming: Fuchsia, Dart, Pixel, Go, Drive, Ara, ... Aside from rare short-term experiments like Stadia everything outside a basic dictionary should be safe. I'm not going to defend Google, but this specific case isn't one that I'd lose my mind over.