5 ms·

> The color was originally going to be called beccapurple, but Meyer asked that it instead be named rebeccapurple, as his daughter had wanted to be called Rebec

> The color was originally going to be called beccapurple, but Meyer asked that it instead be named rebeccapurple, as his daughter had wanted to be called Rebecca once she had turned six. She had said that Becca was a "baby name," and that once she had turned six, she wanted to be called Rebecca. As Eric Meyer put it, "She made it to six. For almost twelve hours, she was six. So Rebecca it is and must be." Wasn't expecting tears over a colour

jvm___ 2y ago
..in 2014 in honor of Eric Meyer's daughter, Rebecca, who passed away at the age of six on her birthday from brain cancer.
- userbinator 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - spockz 2y ago
    I’m not sure. I think it is what makes human. The details are that what make life worth living instead just the endless turning of the cogs. Besides, if you don’t like it, just use the rgb value.
  - Gare 2y ago
    It was not his proposal and it was not in his power to approve it. Community proposed and endorsed it. He only requested a change from becca to rebecca.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Software is a part of human culture. All of human culture is intertwined.
  - edoloughlin 2y ago
    I think finding a meaningful way recognise a significant contributor in a way that doesn’t really impact anyone is something to be encouraged. I imagine that most people would use the hex code anyway and only devs/designers would see the name in their tooling. I can’t see how to apply logic to naming a colour. It’s fundamentally a perceptual and, dare I say it, emotional process. I also think your comment is uncharitable and tone deaf.
  - zanellato19 2y ago
    It's the sort of emotions over logic we need more, you mean.
    - userbinator 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dymk 2y ago
        [flagged]
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      I mostly agree, but not for code lexical choices. The comment obviously lacks empathy and would be better unsung another tone and not words like graveyard. Names are easier to learn and remember when universal. We know memorization works with associations and Chocolate, PaleTurquoise and Aqua are great for that. Chartreuse and DodgerBlue aren’t. While I can personnaly relate to the first the second is totally alien. Both lacks a bit more universality IMHO. Absolute universality isn’t achievable but I stand that is a usefull direction to head to. I’m deeply sorry for Eric’s daughter and gratefull for his work. I’m sure there’s other ways to honor them. PS: thanks for the HN post, now I can relate to RebeccaPurple!
    - kibwen 2y ago
      Not even this. There's no "logical" argument against it. The CSS color names are largely arbitrary and always have been (e.g. "indigo" is a shade of purple, when IRL indigo is the plant that produces the dye for blue jeans). Color names in general have been arbitrary since long before Newton coined ROYGBIV and decided to use "blue" to mean what we call "cyan" today. It's an attitude that presumes that we can apply logic to all walks of life, which ironically is an inherently illogical stance.
      - hombre_fatal 2y ago
        Yeah, that's the main oversight of the OP that makes them look silly. There was no logic to the naming scheme. It was all arbitrary, and the names came in waves from various sources like house paint colors, Crayolas, and the whims of people behind various implementations. If they replaced '#663399' with 'rebeccapurple' maybe they'd have a point.
  - mikojan 2y ago
    You actually thought of that and then also wrote it down. You had to intentionally press "reply" to make the internet see this message. I am stunned!
    - userbinator 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - shiomiru 2y ago
        You look at the monstrosity that is the CSS spec(s), filled to the brim with horrible ideas like floats, the various overcomplicated positioning modes that no mortal can hope to ever fully understand, and undefined behavior left and right in general. And the "bloat" you end up singling out is... an addition to the otherwise 147 entries long color name table.[0] That's just bizarre. [0]: at least when I was implementing it: https://git.sr.ht/~bptato/chawan/tree/351f2f51322c2fa291772c46b06d1a0af2cd26f7/item/src/types/color.nim#L118 https://git.sr.ht/~bptato/chawan/tree/351f2f51322c2fa291772c... perhaps there's more now...
        johnisgood 2y ago
        Your list includes all 140 CSS named colors, so as per CSS Color Module Level 3, it is exhaustive. Your list has duplicates which are valid because both American and British spellings are recognized, e.g. "darkgray" and "darkgrey". If it is not limited to CSS, then you are missing X11 colors (around ~256), for example, although some overlap with CSS colors. If interested, Gpick can serve as a starting point.
      - moomoo11 2y ago
        What’s ur browser called?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    It is sad to see such a comment come from someone with such high karma and seniority. I hope that it is not reflective of the ethos of this community. I feel we have way too little humanity in tech. With the advent of AI, that does not promise to improve.
    - bena 2y ago
      Not to mention, we have a bunch of names that are just jokes, bad puns, random references, or idle wordplay. C# is named because it’s a step up from C++, which is one better than C, which is the next thing after B. Python is just an arbitrarily chosen name referencing a comedy troupe. Linux is Linus’s copy of Minix, which is a minimal Unix, which is based off of Multics, which is a pseudo-initialism. We have names honoring the dead; Pascal, Ada, Darwin. We can name one color in one spec in honor of one person’s dead child. It is neither a burden nor out of character for the field. If you genuinely believe it is a problem, I ask that you step back and reflect on why you truly believe it is.
      - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
        Isn't "PHP" a play on words? I'm told that it stands for "PHP Hypertext Processor." A recursive acronym.
        efreak 2y ago
        Originally it was personal home page
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - TimTheTinker 2y ago
        I agree with not switching from "master" to "main" in git branch parliance. (The music industry didn't stop "mastering" albums, with good reason -- it's a technical term that refers to technical authority, which is a concept worth keeping.) But I don't think this thread is the place for such a discussion. Technical authority and "woke" culture arguments are one thing, but we're talking here about honoring Erie Meier (a seminal figure in CSS history) and his daughter by adding a named color (basically an alias) to CSS and using it in the logo. That's worth doing simply out of love and honor for Eric, his wife and family, and his daughter.
davrosthedalek 2y ago
The last two sentences of that quote hit me so hard.
xelamonster 2y ago
Yeah wow, I love that this is forever encoded into the standard now. A lovely tribute. It's always been one of the few CSS default colors I actually like too (alongside "cornflowerblue").
- schneehertz 2y ago
  Good taste, I also think cornflowerblue is a very balanced color
layer8 2y ago
[flagged]
toxican 2y ago
I'm sobbing like a baby while my 5yo twins are watching TV nearby. That is such a 5-going-on-6 decision to make, which just drives the whole thing home for me and I can't handle it right now. I've always loved the existence of "rebeccapurple", but I somehow missed that part of the story. Her color being immortalized in the CSS logo (even if it changes years from now) is so incredibly beautiful to me.

jvm___ 2y ago

..in 2014 in honor of Eric Meyer's daughter, Rebecca, who passed away at the age of six on her birthday from brain cancer.

userbinator 2y ago
[flagged]
- spockz 2y ago
  I’m not sure. I think it is what makes human. The details are that what make life worth living instead just the endless turning of the cogs. Besides, if you don’t like it, just use the rgb value.
- Gare 2y ago
  It was not his proposal and it was not in his power to approve it. Community proposed and endorsed it. He only requested a change from becca to rebecca.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Software is a part of human culture. All of human culture is intertwined.
- edoloughlin 2y ago
  I think finding a meaningful way recognise a significant contributor in a way that doesn’t really impact anyone is something to be encouraged. I imagine that most people would use the hex code anyway and only devs/designers would see the name in their tooling. I can’t see how to apply logic to naming a colour. It’s fundamentally a perceptual and, dare I say it, emotional process. I also think your comment is uncharitable and tone deaf.
- zanellato19 2y ago
  It's the sort of emotions over logic we need more, you mean.
  - userbinator 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dymk 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    I mostly agree, but not for code lexical choices. The comment obviously lacks empathy and would be better unsung another tone and not words like graveyard. Names are easier to learn and remember when universal. We know memorization works with associations and Chocolate, PaleTurquoise and Aqua are great for that. Chartreuse and DodgerBlue aren’t. While I can personnaly relate to the first the second is totally alien. Both lacks a bit more universality IMHO. Absolute universality isn’t achievable but I stand that is a usefull direction to head to. I’m deeply sorry for Eric’s daughter and gratefull for his work. I’m sure there’s other ways to honor them. PS: thanks for the HN post, now I can relate to RebeccaPurple!
  - kibwen 2y ago
    Not even this. There's no "logical" argument against it. The CSS color names are largely arbitrary and always have been (e.g. "indigo" is a shade of purple, when IRL indigo is the plant that produces the dye for blue jeans). Color names in general have been arbitrary since long before Newton coined ROYGBIV and decided to use "blue" to mean what we call "cyan" today. It's an attitude that presumes that we can apply logic to all walks of life, which ironically is an inherently illogical stance.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
      Yeah, that's the main oversight of the OP that makes them look silly. There was no logic to the naming scheme. It was all arbitrary, and the names came in waves from various sources like house paint colors, Crayolas, and the whims of people behind various implementations. If they replaced '#663399' with 'rebeccapurple' maybe they'd have a point.
- mikojan 2y ago
  You actually thought of that and then also wrote it down. You had to intentionally press "reply" to make the internet see this message. I am stunned!
  - userbinator 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - shiomiru 2y ago
      You look at the monstrosity that is the CSS spec(s), filled to the brim with horrible ideas like floats, the various overcomplicated positioning modes that no mortal can hope to ever fully understand, and undefined behavior left and right in general. And the "bloat" you end up singling out is... an addition to the otherwise 147 entries long color name table.[0] That's just bizarre. [0]: at least when I was implementing it: https://git.sr.ht/~bptato/chawan/tree/351f2f51322c2fa291772c46b06d1a0af2cd26f7/item/src/types/color.nim#L118 https://git.sr.ht/~bptato/chawan/tree/351f2f51322c2fa291772c... perhaps there's more now...
      - johnisgood 2y ago
        Your list includes all 140 CSS named colors, so as per CSS Color Module Level 3, it is exhaustive. Your list has duplicates which are valid because both American and British spellings are recognized, e.g. "darkgray" and "darkgrey". If it is not limited to CSS, then you are missing X11 colors (around ~256), for example, although some overlap with CSS colors. If interested, Gpick can serve as a starting point.
    - moomoo11 2y ago
      What’s ur browser called?
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  It is sad to see such a comment come from someone with such high karma and seniority. I hope that it is not reflective of the ethos of this community. I feel we have way too little humanity in tech. With the advent of AI, that does not promise to improve.
  - bena 2y ago
    Not to mention, we have a bunch of names that are just jokes, bad puns, random references, or idle wordplay. C# is named because it’s a step up from C++, which is one better than C, which is the next thing after B. Python is just an arbitrarily chosen name referencing a comedy troupe. Linux is Linus’s copy of Minix, which is a minimal Unix, which is based off of Multics, which is a pseudo-initialism. We have names honoring the dead; Pascal, Ada, Darwin. We can name one color in one spec in honor of one person’s dead child. It is neither a burden nor out of character for the field. If you genuinely believe it is a problem, I ask that you step back and reflect on why you truly believe it is.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
      Isn't "PHP" a play on words? I'm told that it stands for "PHP Hypertext Processor." A recursive acronym.
      - efreak 2y ago
        Originally it was personal home page
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - TimTheTinker 2y ago
      I agree with not switching from "master" to "main" in git branch parliance. (The music industry didn't stop "mastering" albums, with good reason -- it's a technical term that refers to technical authority, which is a concept worth keeping.) But I don't think this thread is the place for such a discussion. Technical authority and "woke" culture arguments are one thing, but we're talking here about honoring Erie Meier (a seminal figure in CSS history) and his daughter by adding a named color (basically an alias) to CSS and using it in the logo. That's worth doing simply out of love and honor for Eric, his wife and family, and his daughter.

davrosthedalek 2y ago

The last two sentences of that quote hit me so hard.

xelamonster 2y ago

Yeah wow, I love that this is forever encoded into the standard now. A lovely tribute. It's always been one of the few CSS default colors I actually like too (alongside "cornflowerblue").

schneehertz 2y ago
Good taste, I also think cornflowerblue is a very balanced color

layer8 2y ago

[flagged]

toxican 2y ago

I'm sobbing like a baby while my 5yo twins are watching TV nearby. That is such a 5-going-on-6 decision to make, which just drives the whole thing home for me and I can't handle it right now. I've always loved the existence of "rebeccapurple", but I somehow missed that part of the story. Her color being immortalized in the CSS logo (even if it changes years from now) is so incredibly beautiful to me.