10 ms·

Naming Things

34 points by flavioribeiro 13y ago

greenyoda 13y ago
"Marmota" is definitely a cool name for software. However, it isn't just Portugese; it's also the scientific name for a genus of rodents (marmots) that includes groundhogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot
praptak 13y ago
Fun fact: Streams-analyzer, EvoHandler and their ilk are recognized by the reputable compendium of general knowledge that TVTrope is: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber
- flavioribeiro 13y ago
  NounVerber, hehehe... this is a term I didn't know. thank you for sharing this.
jeessy 13y ago
Great article, good naming is powerful but it is damn hard. Lately, I've been working on a project called Office Garden (officegarden.lu). It's interesting to see how people react to my pitch depending on when I give the app's name.
- bbrks 13y ago
  Even after visiting your website, I have no idea what Office Garden actually is or does. Maybe I'll find out if I enter my e-mail address into your form... But then again, maybe not, and my email would end up on yet another list I don't want.
  - jeessy 13y ago
    Well you're right, it's still in private beta so I didn't put much information about it on the homepage. Office Garden is a platform where employees from the same company get to know each other, have fun and share their interests. We deeply believe that happy employees build more successful businesses.
    - sejje 13y ago
      At most of my jobs, I'd have been happier if I didn't know my co-workers.
jakobe 13y ago
When I named my apps, I just tried to come up with the most descriptive name possible. ("MDB Viewer", "PG Commander"). I really want people who look at search engine result pages and app store listings to immediately recognize what my app is good for.
jpdlla 13y ago
This is always hard even when naming variables, functions, and classes. I always try to be as verbose as possible and sometimes spend like 10 minutes just pondering of a name.
Doctor_Fegg 13y ago
So. Many. Bad. Names. The whole Travis/Jenkins/Hudson thing baffles me. Yes, they're all butlers. I can never remember which one is which. And since I'm English, butlers represent the worst of the old, deferential world, the world I spend half my life fighting against... and that's precisely why IMHO they're unsuitable names for anything open-source. "therubyracer". It's something to do with Ruby. It's presumably quite fast. This isn't telling me much. But then, I've released a fair amount of shockingly badly named stuff myself, so I should stop here. Other than to improve on the quote that begins TFA: "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."
- rpsw 13y ago
  I get why Jenkins kept the butler theme, seeing as it was a fork of Hudson by some of the main developers. But yeah, it can cause confusion.
- LukeShu 13y ago
  "therubyracer" is a pun; if you know that it is a wrapper around "V8", which can refer to a car engine, it is easy enough to remember.
8ig8 13y ago
When I switched away from MS Office apps to Apple's equivalents, it was such a pain googling for help in "Numbers" and "Pages". The app names are so generic it was frustrating finding relevant results. How do I "insert page numbers in Pages"? How do I "round down in Numbers"? Edit: I guess "Word" is not much better.
- benbou09 13y ago
  Indeed... How do people google stuff like C or Go ?
  - spurgu 13y ago
    When I studied Go I found that searching for "golang" instead worked well.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    C is a highly famous language, so it's actually really easy. Biggest problem might be to get irrelevant results for C++, in that case you just use search operators and wrap "C" in quotation marks.
- hfsktr 13y ago
  With Word and the like you can put 'ms' in front at least. The biggest issue I have when searching (for things I don't know the proper name for) is when punctuation is part of the search. Even with quotes it seems to ignore question marks and exclamation points and it feels really unnatural to type 'exclamation exclamation' for a search.
  - seagrass 13y ago
    Web search for programmers: http://www.symbolhound.com/ http://www.symbolhound.com/
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  Yeah, but when googling back then you would do msword.
henrik_w 13y ago
"Code Complete" by Steve McConnell has the best advice on naming classes, ,methods and variables that I have read (don't have the book handy here, so can't give examples right now).
professorTuring 13y ago
Wikipedia Random is the best name generator ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random Naming that special machine that...: Rolling... "Troisdorf" Naming that web project project...: Rolling... "Mimeresia cellularis" Works like a charm (sometimes I just roll three times for one name).
dal 13y ago
You should check out my little site about naming stuff: http://namingschemes.com http://namingschemes.com
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

34 points by flavioribeiro 13y ago

"Marmota" is definitely a cool name for software. However, it isn't just Portugese; it's also the scientific name for a genus of rodents (marmots) that includes groundhogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmot

praptak 13y ago

Fun fact: Streams-analyzer, EvoHandler and their ilk are recognized by the reputable compendium of general knowledge that TVTrope is: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NounVerber

flavioribeiro 13y ago
NounVerber, hehehe... this is a term I didn't know. thank you for sharing this.

jeessy 13y ago

Great article, good naming is powerful but it is damn hard. Lately, I've been working on a project called Office Garden (officegarden.lu). It's interesting to see how people react to my pitch depending on when I give the app's name.

bbrks 13y ago
Even after visiting your website, I have no idea what Office Garden actually is or does. Maybe I'll find out if I enter my e-mail address into your form... But then again, maybe not, and my email would end up on yet another list I don't want.
- jeessy 13y ago
  Well you're right, it's still in private beta so I didn't put much information about it on the homepage. Office Garden is a platform where employees from the same company get to know each other, have fun and share their interests. We deeply believe that happy employees build more successful businesses.
  - sejje 13y ago
    At most of my jobs, I'd have been happier if I didn't know my co-workers.

jakobe 13y ago

When I named my apps, I just tried to come up with the most descriptive name possible. ("MDB Viewer", "PG Commander"). I really want people who look at search engine result pages and app store listings to immediately recognize what my app is good for.

jpdlla 13y ago

This is always hard even when naming variables, functions, and classes. I always try to be as verbose as possible and sometimes spend like 10 minutes just pondering of a name.

Doctor_Fegg 13y ago

So. Many. Bad. Names. The whole Travis/Jenkins/Hudson thing baffles me. Yes, they're all butlers. I can never remember which one is which. And since I'm English, butlers represent the worst of the old, deferential world, the world I spend half my life fighting against... and that's precisely why IMHO they're unsuitable names for anything open-source. "therubyracer". It's something to do with Ruby. It's presumably quite fast. This isn't telling me much. But then, I've released a fair amount of shockingly badly named stuff myself, so I should stop here. Other than to improve on the quote that begins TFA: "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."

rpsw 13y ago
I get why Jenkins kept the butler theme, seeing as it was a fork of Hudson by some of the main developers. But yeah, it can cause confusion.
LukeShu 13y ago
"therubyracer" is a pun; if you know that it is a wrapper around "V8", which can refer to a car engine, it is easy enough to remember.

8ig8 13y ago

When I switched away from MS Office apps to Apple's equivalents, it was such a pain googling for help in "Numbers" and "Pages". The app names are so generic it was frustrating finding relevant results. How do I "insert page numbers in Pages"? How do I "round down in Numbers"? Edit: I guess "Word" is not much better.

benbou09 13y ago
Indeed... How do people google stuff like C or Go ?
- spurgu 13y ago
  When I studied Go I found that searching for "golang" instead worked well.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  C is a highly famous language, so it's actually really easy. Biggest problem might be to get irrelevant results for C++, in that case you just use search operators and wrap "C" in quotation marks.
hfsktr 13y ago
With Word and the like you can put 'ms' in front at least. The biggest issue I have when searching (for things I don't know the proper name for) is when punctuation is part of the search. Even with quotes it seems to ignore question marks and exclamation points and it feels really unnatural to type 'exclamation exclamation' for a search.
- seagrass 13y ago
  Web search for programmers: http://www.symbolhound.com/ http://www.symbolhound.com/
3pt14159 13y ago
Yeah, but when googling back then you would do msword.

henrik_w 13y ago

"Code Complete" by Steve McConnell has the best advice on naming classes, ,methods and variables that I have read (don't have the book handy here, so can't give examples right now).

professorTuring 13y ago

Wikipedia Random is the best name generator ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random Naming that special machine that...: Rolling... "Troisdorf" Naming that web project project...: Rolling... "Mimeresia cellularis" Works like a charm (sometimes I just roll three times for one name).

dal 13y ago

You should check out my little site about naming stuff: http://namingschemes.com http://namingschemes.com

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]