Top
Best
New

Posted by todsacerdoti 12/11/2025

Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools(larr.net)
422 points | 534 commentspage 9
lowbloodsugar 12/11/2025|
I have developed a language for writing structured queries. Based on this article, I have decided to call it SQL.
a96 12/12/2025|
Calling it Sequel would have been made it easier to pronounce. I think I'll just pronounce it that way in my mind.
janmarsal 12/12/2025||
I think there should be some kind of a tax or a fine for anyone who comes up or even suggests a new acronym. Regardless of the field. While I do agree with the article on some level, I still think even a randomly picked word from the dictionary is better than YAA (Yet Another Acronym).
renewiltord 12/11/2025||
There is a place I agree with this: human anatomy. I find eileiter/oviduct superior to Fallopian tube.
mbg721 12/12/2025||
How do conference-room names fare in this view? My current company names them after football teams or local landmarks. But I heard about someone who used to work somewhere that named theirs after WWII battles, which was awkward for the Japanese guy they interviewed in one of them.
irishcoffee 12/12/2025||
The two hardest things in software engineering: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors.
Mikhail_Edoshin 12/12/2025||
Thete is no way to give descriptive names unless it is a single centralized system. Names need to be consistent, this is the main requirement for a good set of names. When the whole set is consistent, individual names can be nearly arbitrary, it won't matter much.
WatchDog 12/11/2025||
There are many different tools that attempt to solve the same problem, with varying levels of competency.

They can't all use the same name. If you want to build a better alternative to an existing solution, you need to choose a different name, this leads to names being arbitrary.

lordleft 12/11/2025||
I am highly sympathetic to this sentiment, but I think it's hard to name things in software because a) it's easy for the obvious names to get overloaded and b) many of the things we are dealing with are basically abstract relationships with arbitrary properties.
officialchicken 12/12/2025||
There was never a plot to follow; if there isn't a better name for an editor than "vi" (because "ed" is already taken) then maybe they should try getting rid of verbs too to give it more "refreshed" branding.
gilcot 12/18/2025||
No, the editor is "ex" (for extended ed…) and "vi" is it's other face… (when you call vi, it’s same as calling ex then issuing :visual command…)
Joker_vD 12/12/2025||
I just want an editor! Not a "viitor". Not an "emacsitor". Those aren't even words!!!

Imagine calling your firm "Commerical Firm". Would this even be allowed?

komali2 12/12/2025|
This drives me crazy because I use dmenu to launch things, and every time I want to launch a subsonic client I'm like "blueberry? Wayshin... Weish... Fei... FEISHIN!"

Just call it "subsonicfeishin" or something at least!

"Chatgpt... Mc... CODEX!"

It's nuts.

More comments...