5 ms·
I may be nitpicking irellevant details, but I just can't help it. Why are they using the Norwegian/Nordic letter Ø (pronounced almost like "uh" in English) in
by josteink 13y ago
I may be nitpicking irellevant details, but I just can't help it.
Why are they using the Norwegian/Nordic letter Ø (pronounced almost like "uh" in English) in their name, a letter most people in the world can't type, if they want to get traction?
- thraxil 13y agoThe zeromq guide (http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all#The-Zen-of-Zero http://zguide.zeromq.org/page:all#The-Zen-of-Zero) explains it thusly: "The Ø in ØMQ is all about tradeoffs. On the one hand this strange name lowers ØMQ's visibility on Google and Twitter. On the other hand it annoys the heck out of some Danish folk who write us things like "ØMG røtfl", and "Ø is not a funny looking zero!" and "Rødgrød med Fløde!", which is apparently an insult that means "may your neighbours be the direct descendants of Grendel!" Seems like a fair trade. Originally the zero in ØMQ was meant as "zero broker" and (as close to) "zero latency" (as possible). Since then, it has come to encompass different goals: zero administration, zero cost, zero waste. More generally, "zero" refers to the culture of minimalism that permeates the project. We add power by removing complexity rather than by exposing new functionality."
- rahoulb 13y agoI assume it means "zero with a line through it" which was used on older computers to distinguish zeroes from the letter O on low res screens.
- lloeki 13y agoOr empty set as noted by Bourbaki. I can't help but read it that way anyway.
- tel 13y agoThat's always been my reading as well.
- cdcarter 13y agoActually, it long predates computers, handwritten and typeset materials as far back as the 12th century use it. As it turns out, it's frustrating when two common characters look so similar.
- EdwardDiego 13y agoProbably unicode support reasons, they're obviously going for a slashed zero to look old school and/or avoid being called OhMQ but... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashed_zero#Representation_in_Unicode_and_HTML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashed_zero#Representation_in_...
- carbocation 13y agoEmpty set / dot matrix zero, as others point out. Plus there is near reflectional symmetry across the midline of the M given the morphology of the Ø and the Q.
- josteink 13y agoIn that case they should use the unicode-character or HTML entity designated for empty sets[1], and not the letter Ø. Believe it or not, even in the Nordic part of the world we do have empty sets, and we are able to distinguish them from Øs just fine :) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98#Encoding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98#Encoding Anyway. If that's the underlying logic... How does communicating "empty set MQ" to your visitors work when you want to market the product with the name "zero MQ"? What do I search for when I remember "empty set MQ"? To me this just doesn't add up. It looks like an attempt at doing "something cool" gone a bit off target. Edit: The replies to my original comment here also seems to back up the point that this is not very clear or universal communication.
- hintjens 13y agoMost people just type "zmq", and the name is "ZeroMQ", with the unwriteable shorthand acting as a kind of text logo.