5 ms·

I'm having trouble thinking of a less googleable name for a programming language.

by monochromatic 11y ago

hk__2 11y ago
There are a lot of them, e.g: B, C, D, E, R, Go, Io.
- rugatelstvo 11y ago
  Also my favorites Verbose(Java has nothing on it) and Intolerant("A language that wipes the user's hard drive if an error occurs").
- stagger87 11y ago
  C, D, R, and Go are the first links presented in Google search results searching simply on their name.
  - oblio 11y ago
    And do you know why? 1. Because Google already knows that you're a hacker (based on your search history and other info it has on you). 2. Because those are old and famous in their respective communities (ergo page rank and visibility). 3. Because there is actually content for them out there (so it actually has something to present).
- monochromatic 11y ago
  Go I will give you, and maybe Io. But I actually think "None" is worse than any of your other examples.
- barsonme 11y ago
  Go uses golang for almost anything search-related on the internet.
TodPunk 11y ago
I've always had troubles with Factor. The suggestion is convert searches to "factorlang" but this has middling success.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dalke 11y ago
The SQL-style query language called "ENGLISH" used for the Pick operating system by Microdata Corporation. One conjecture I read was the name was chosen so sales could say "your users can query the database in ENGLISH".
StevePerkins 11y ago
I think that award goes to "S" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language)]. If you add a "-lang" suffix (the traditional fix for a poorly-named programming language), you just end up with "slang".
- qbrass 11y ago
  Plus it's already taken. http://www.jedsoft.org/slang/ http://www.jedsoft.org/slang/
incepted 11y ago
How about C? Or a language with meta characters in it, such as C++? Obviously, these two languages are popular now so they are the first hit but you can bet in the early days of the web, it was a bit different. I understand your point, though, whenever I create a project, I do my best to pick a unique name for that very reason, but overall, history tends to indicate that such decision will not prevent a good product from becoming popular.
- Retra 11y ago
  Google didn't exist when C and C++ became popular, so naturally it had no effect on their popularity. But you can't say that new languages don't suffer from those problems, because newer languages so rarely reach the level of popularity of C/C++, even when they have easy to search names.
baddox 11y ago
I did a college project in Icon. You can find all the major docs and manuals by Googling "icon programming language," but any more specific Google queries tend to return results for things like changing the favicon of a website or changing a desktop icon in Windows. It is, incidentally, a pretty neat programming language. It seems like it had a big influence on Python.
brudgers 11y ago
Not altogether unsurprisingly, for me "none programming language" works currently on Google. And while I may be jumping to conclusions, I suspect that the intersection of programmers to whom none appeals and those who think "programming language" is just too much to type into the Google it box to gain access to a tool is probably pretty low. In my experience, there are places where unique search terms really matter and those where it doesn't and developer tools tend to fall into the latter.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
Not programming languages, but Apple's "Pages" and "Numbers" are pretty lousy when it comes to googleablility.
zeckalpha 11y ago
Swift: http://swift-lang.org/main/ http://swift-lang.org/main/ Hint: Not Apple's.

I'm having trouble thinking of a less googleable name for a programming language.

hk__2 11y ago

There are a lot of them, e.g: B, C, D, E, R, Go, Io.

rugatelstvo 11y ago
Also my favorites Verbose(Java has nothing on it) and Intolerant("A language that wipes the user's hard drive if an error occurs").
stagger87 11y ago
C, D, R, and Go are the first links presented in Google search results searching simply on their name.
- oblio 11y ago
  And do you know why? 1. Because Google already knows that you're a hacker (based on your search history and other info it has on you). 2. Because those are old and famous in their respective communities (ergo page rank and visibility). 3. Because there is actually content for them out there (so it actually has something to present).
monochromatic 11y ago
Go I will give you, and maybe Io. But I actually think "None" is worse than any of your other examples.
barsonme 11y ago
Go uses golang for almost anything search-related on the internet.

TodPunk 11y ago

I've always had troubles with Factor. The suggestion is convert searches to "factorlang" but this has middling success.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

dalke 11y ago

The SQL-style query language called "ENGLISH" used for the Pick operating system by Microdata Corporation. One conjecture I read was the name was chosen so sales could say "your users can query the database in ENGLISH".

StevePerkins 11y ago

I think that award goes to "S" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language)]. If you add a "-lang" suffix (the traditional fix for a poorly-named programming language), you just end up with "slang".

qbrass 11y ago
Plus it's already taken. http://www.jedsoft.org/slang/ http://www.jedsoft.org/slang/

incepted 11y ago

How about C? Or a language with meta characters in it, such as C++? Obviously, these two languages are popular now so they are the first hit but you can bet in the early days of the web, it was a bit different. I understand your point, though, whenever I create a project, I do my best to pick a unique name for that very reason, but overall, history tends to indicate that such decision will not prevent a good product from becoming popular.

Retra 11y ago
Google didn't exist when C and C++ became popular, so naturally it had no effect on their popularity. But you can't say that new languages don't suffer from those problems, because newer languages so rarely reach the level of popularity of C/C++, even when they have easy to search names.

baddox 11y ago

I did a college project in Icon. You can find all the major docs and manuals by Googling "icon programming language," but any more specific Google queries tend to return results for things like changing the favicon of a website or changing a desktop icon in Windows. It is, incidentally, a pretty neat programming language. It seems like it had a big influence on Python.

brudgers 11y ago

Not altogether unsurprisingly, for me "none programming language" works currently on Google. And while I may be jumping to conclusions, I suspect that the intersection of programmers to whom none appeals and those who think "programming language" is just too much to type into the Google it box to gain access to a tool is probably pretty low. In my experience, there are places where unique search terms really matter and those where it doesn't and developer tools tend to fall into the latter.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

Not programming languages, but Apple's "Pages" and "Numbers" are pretty lousy when it comes to googleablility.

zeckalpha 11y ago

Swift: http://swift-lang.org/main/ http://swift-lang.org/main/ Hint: Not Apple's.