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I wonder where the name came from. Being HN, here is my nitpicking imperative: Names are important. Our inheritance is wit, self-awareness, and irony; names t
by wolverine876 3y ago
I wonder where the name came from. Being HN, here is my nitpicking imperative:
Names are important. Our inheritance is wit, self-awareness, and irony; names that puncture ego and power and that appeal to joy: C, C++, GNU, Rust, Google, Yahoo!, Vim, Git, awk, etc. Others are beautiful, evocative images, like Apple and Amazon. Names communicate our culture and ideals to each other and to the next generation.
Careless, thoughtless names like Microsoft, IBM, etc. (ok it's ironic and self-deprecating, but without self-awareness or wit!), etc. should be hated and banned. Egotistical BS, especially Tolkien plagiarists who assert they are supernatural, should be tarred and feathered and paraded around town (with wit and irony).
(Plenty of names fall in some middle ground.)
If Steel is just a derivative of 'Rust' [edit: it is not, see the response below], it misses the self-awareness. Someone naming their development product - designed to build great structures - 'Rust' is engaging in a little self-deprication, joy, and self-awareness. Naming the derivative project 'Steel' possibly misses all that; there's a reason the original wasn't named Iron or Steel or Carbon Fiber. But maybe there's more to the name.
- pasabagi 3y agoI don't think it's particularly careless: SBCL is short for 'Steel Bank Common Lisp', which is a reference to how the CMU university, named after Carnegie Mellon, could be respectively substituted with 'Steel' (Carnegie) and 'Bank' (Mellon).
- girvo 3y agoI, somehow, never put together the SB -> CM link! That's awesome, thanks for sharing
- mattparas 3y agoSo here is the history: 1. Guy Steele (along with Gerald Sussman) created scheme, and Steel is close to Steele, just drop the e. 2. Steel is a scheme, and I observed that scheme names have a tendency to be named things crime related: Scheme, Racket (racketeering), Larceny, etc - Not a scientific analysis at all, but I found it funny at the time that Steel sounds like "steal". 3. You made the observation, Steel sounds like something that would be associated with Rust. Beyond that, I just liked the name. No SEO involved, and arguably probably should have picked something more searchable, but I didn't start making it with the intention of there being a lot of users, it started as a project for school.
- wolverine876 3y agoAwesome! Thank you. Someone else pointed out the Steele/Steel relationship and I was hopeful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38510060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38510060
- mst 3y agoTriple pun score! (I always try and cram as many simultaneous jokes as possible into project names - and have a soft spot for lisp - so I wish you much joy and whatever level of success is most fun for you)
- mattparas 3y agoThank you - I appreciate the kind words :)
- dannyobrien 3y agoNo judgement (I think great puns bring great minds together so namespace clashes are inevitable), but this was similar to the thinking behind a name for "Guile Steel", the low-level Scheme being plotted about by some of the Guile Scheme folks here: https://dustycloud.org/blog/guile-steel-proposal/ https://dustycloud.org/blog/guile-steel-proposal/
- mattparas 3y agoAh yes I remember seeing that when it was posted on HN - I think Steel predated that post by a few years :) All of the work done by the guile folks is incredible, I wouldn't mind the name clash at all if there is a Guile steel that comes about.
- brundolf 3y agoAn extra cheeky name might have been "stainless" (steel that doesn't rust) ;)
- Y_Y 3y ago> beautiful, evocative images, like Apple Is this a joke?