Re: plz -> curl?

[Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>]

Hello, Richard.

On Mon, May 16, 2022 at 19:25:41 -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
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> We have arrived at a deep and fundamental disagreement about what it
> means to make a program clear.  I have pointed out that the name "plz"
> gives no information about what the package does.  It is totally
> unhelpful.

The abbreviation PLZ is instantly recognisable to a German speaker.  It
means "postcode"/"zipcode", something not entirely irrelevant here, if
perhaps coincidental.

> You contend that an arbitrary and unhelpful name is just as good as a
> helpful name.  The argument is that we have commands to do searches
> from the name to its purpose and from words in its purpose to the
> name.

For that matter, the name Emacs is just as unhelpful to somebody who
doesn't know the program.  There's likely nobody reading this group who
has any difficulty typing in xkcd to get to the source of wit and
wisdom.

> Those commands are helpful, but using them is laborious by comparison
> woth the simple verbal connection.

Commands need to be typed into the minibuffer.  A short prefix is easier
to type than a long one.  plz- is, for example, easier to type than
byte-compile-.

> For the packages feature, I am a beginner.  I don't know those
> commands.  I will learn these commands if I start using packages more,
> but there will always be many users who are beginners in this.

As am I.

> Whenever we add a new package, we should consider whether to change
> its name first.  But plz has not been installed for long.  Giving it a
> clear, meaningful name now won't cause any pain.

If by that is meant a long name, it will cause pain.  See above.

> A clear meaningful name does not have to be long.  Someone suggested
> `curl' -- meaningful, and quite short.  Perhaps `curl-url' would be
> even more helpful, to the many who who don't use curl -- and it is
> still short.

It's medium lnog.

> If no one has a better idea, let's rename it that way now.

I think it better to leave the name as it is, if for no better reason
than respect for the wishes of its author.

> It would still be a good thing to design a uniform interface for
> fetching a page through any of the various methods Emacs supports.
> But that may or may not get written, so let's DTRT for this package
> now.

> -- 
> Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).