Re: [ELPA] New package: dape

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> writes:

> Hello Philip,
>
>> In addition to this, there have on multiple occasions been authors
>> who have been open and appreciative of names being suggested here on
>> the mailing list, especially if they don't have a strong opinion wrt
>> the name to begin with.  It seems unjustified to claim that
>> mentioning the topic will necessarily scare people away.
>
> Please don't misunderstand me.  I am not claiming that it will
> necessarily scare people away.  I am claiming that the bikeshedding can
> be discouraging to authors who consider submitting to GNU ELPA.  This
> should not be surprising, as I don't think anyone would enjoy having to
> endure a lengthy thread second-guessing their decision, which usually
> seems to proceed with the assumption that the author hasn't already
> spent time making it deliberately.

In this context, as is usually the case with a package submission, I
submitted comments and suggestions on how to improve the package, and
then apologised for braining up the topic of naming the package, to see
if Daniel was committed or not to the name (implying they have spent
time making a deliberate decision), to which he responded:

  I'm not overly attached to it. What are your objections? And do you have
  any suggestions? I find it quite difficult to name things like this.

Which I think is a fair starting point for a discussion.

> As well, I can go through the list of packages on GNU ELPA and find
> tens of them whose names don't bear any apparent relation to their
> purpose or description.  Should that stop us from seeking better
> names?  Of course not.  But at what point do we admit that Shakespeare
> was right?

That is true, but there are a number of them with great names IMO:

- aggressive-completion
- comint-mime
- cycle-at-point
- idle-highlight-mode
- notmuch-indicator
- page-break-lines
- rainbow-delimiters
- scroll-on-jump
- visual-fill-column

I have always associated GNU ELPA with having proper and expressive
names, that either are self-descriptive or re-use nomenclature that
Emacs users would be familiar with to begin with (things like "electric"
or "i"-something for interactive).  Makes it easier to remember the
names and builds on intuition, which we shouldn't underestimate as a
measure for user comfort.  Not everyone is young and enthusiastic enough
to keep memorising and associating new names.

>> (I didn't want to bring this up initially, but one of the reasons I
>> mentioned changing the name is due to the small edit distance between
>> "dape" and "r*pe", that I can imagine would make other people more
>> uncomfortable).
>
> Well, let's see, in QWERTY order: tape, ape, gape, jape, cape, vape,
> nape...  I think that's not a practical reason to reject an author's
> name, and not a very polite association to make with the name he
> chose.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, this is just the
association I made.  I usually think about how saying packages names out
loud, when speaking with other people feels like.  Names name "eglot"
(not 'elgot) or "vertico" (not "vertigo") are frequently misunderstood
in my experience, and names in this case I could imagine a third person
listening in on a conversation could misunderstand something, because it
sounds like a slang word.  FWIW urban dictionary doesn't have the nicest
entry when you look up "dape"...