Re: on the importance of names (was: proposal: enhance and rename guile-tools)

[Noah Lavine <noah.b.lavine@gmail.com>]

The coolness is irrefutable. :-)

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 7:08 AM, Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> wrote:
> Howdy,
>
> On Mon 21 Mar 2011 00:16, ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) writes:
>
>> Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com> writes:
>>
>>> "Guido, compile my-file.scm."
>>
>> Is the pun[*] intended?  :-)
>
> OK, point taken.  Too bad though!
>
> I have another proposal, but first I want to elaborate on why I think
> guile-tools is a silly name.
>
> First of all it's not a good noun.  I don't know how to capitalize it,
> for example.  Guile-Tools ?  Too camel-casey.  Guile-tools ?  It's long
> and slanted, like a boat launching ramp.  guile-tools ?  But then it
> doesn't look like the start of a sentence.
>
> Also, how do you feel when you say "guile-tools compile foo.scm" ?  I
> kinda feel like a tool!  Its clunkiness makes me feel clunky.  Not good!
>
> These difficulties have real repercussions.  A clunky name leads us to
> avoid mentioning the thing, which isn't good either for the tool itself
> or for peoples' awareness of the tool.
>
> Names are important, is what I'm saying.
>
> So!  My new proposal is "guild".
>
>  guild update
>  guild compile foo.scm
>  guild install fmt
>
> Guild has the usual advantages of being short and having a name that
> shares structure with Guile.  Of course there is the disadvantage that
> it's only one character away, and my fingers are programmed to type "e"
> after "guil", so there would be some retraining.
>
> But that doesn't mention the real advantage of "guild", which is how you
> feel when you type it or tell it to someone: that you pertain to a
> secret society of wizards!  Who wouldn't want to pertain to such a
> guild?  I feel awesomer just for having typed it.
>
> Also if the main purpose of the tool will be, besides compilation,
> interaction with our CPAN, then it really will be about a collective of
> people producing spel(l)s (cf. Barski's "Casting SPELs with Lisp").
> Sweet!
>
> What do folks think about this harebrained idea?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andy
> --
> http://wingolog.org/
>
>