Hello,

Might be related to the subject (?) but would adding something like
keywords/tags to package definitions help? On Emacs, a package definition
like this can pop up:

ack is an available package.
>
>      Status: Available from gnu -- Install
>     Archive: gnu
>     Version: 1.8
>     Summary: interface to ack-like tools
>    Homepage: https://github.com/leoliu/ack-el
>    Keywords: tools processes convenience
>

Then searching packages via keywords can be done:
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Package-Keywords.html

On Slackbuilds likewise (keywords somewhere below):
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.2/system/guix/

This could be metadata to help find related stuff so there can be a games
tag for the wesnoth package. Also dunno how related, but in Common Lisp
nicknames can be defined for packages. I wrote some game programming
libraries bindings before that uses a longer name for the definition but a
two letter nickname to make it easier to use in practice.

Sincerely,
Daniel Jiang

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 1:26 PM Pierre Neidhardt <mail@ambrevar.xyz> wrote:

> Tobias Geerinckx-Rice <me@tobias.gr> writes:
>
> > TL;DR: we're missing a field like ‘DISPLAY-NAME’, and all this is
> > just hacking around the bush.
>
> This could be a very nice idea!
>
> > Using this logic, I counter that these very long names unfairly
> > privilege 1337 hackers who can touch-type, and hurt the average
> > Jo' poking at their chiclet keyboard with a chopstick ;-)
> >
> > Both arguments make about as much sense IMO (and caricature
> > users).  I think a name like ‘the-battle-for-wesnoth’ helps
> > *neither* user.
>
> Users who cannot touch-type will typically perform simple queries, such as:
>
> - battle wesnoth
> - wesnoth battle
> - battle
> - wesnoth
>
> (Using Emacs-Guix.el, Helm, or the next GTK interface.)
>
> With "wesnoth" as a name, 3 out 4 queries won't hit a result.
>
> I don't think that "typing" is the issue here.  At least, I wouldn't
> sacrifice the _ability to search_ just to type short names.
>
> Also an option is to alias package names.
>
>
> > XLong names take longer to type on the command line, and noisy to
> > read in code.
>
> Noisy?  Why?  Short code filled with acronyms tends to be harder to read
> then long explicit names.
>
> Package names are mostly used as inputs.  In those longs package lists,
> it's really nice to have explicit names and leave little room for
> ambiguity.
>
> > Some hinder tab-completion.
>
> Why?
>
> > In a GUI, they still look ugly: why no spaces?  Why lowercase?
> > Why bother?  We don't have to choose between POLA from other
> > command-line package managers and providing pretty metadata for
> > higher-level UIs.
> > We can do both.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> --
> Pierre Neidhardt
> https://ambrevar.xyz/
>