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

[Andy Wingo <wingo@pobox.com>]

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
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