Think twice before naming your new programming language

http://guillaume-nargeot.blogspot.com/2009/08/think-twice-before-naming-your-new_21.html

by gnargeot • 17 years ago

38 16 17 years ago

guillaume-nargeot.blogspot.com

I think this goes for a lot more than just programming languages. FOSS projects in general tend to pick some generic English words as names that make them really hard to find. I've even seen a few startups that've fallen into this pit.

Ironically, the fact that most "decent" domain names have been taken is forcing startups to put more time into coming up with a name which could ultimately help their searchability, though it does come at the expense of the "speakability" of their name.

patio11• 17 years ago

FOSS projects in general tend to pick some generic English words as names that make them really hard to find

This is related to most F/OSS projects having a crushing deficit in the marketing skills department. Notice how most don't have a visual identity, either? And how they typically launch mostly undocumented, on somebody else's website?

I had a checklist for launching A/Bingo, and held off on it for a week past when the code was ready, because the marketing wasn't. Logo, slogan, landing page, usage documentation, install documentation, live demo, domain name. It practically killed me because I was/am proud of that project and wanted to start collecting feedback but I know it won't spread if I don't do a proper job of it.

There is no point in spending dozens or hundreds of engineer hours on a project if it languishes in obscurity because you were too disinterested to, e.g., put a logo on it. (Mine cost $210. Cheap at the price!)

Incidentally, even if you can't get the exact match domain .com domain name for your project, for OSS everyone is just going to Google you anyhow. Name the project well and you will rank for your own name very, very fast as a consequence of your normal marketing activities, since good OSS tends to collect authoritative links with laser focused anchor text. </freeSEOAdvice>

billswift• 17 years ago

Part of the problem seems to be the programmer's habit of using the shortest possible variable names and commands: ls, cp, mv, and how many programs have variables a, b, x, and so on. There shouldn't be any drawback to using longer descriptive names (or funny, arbitrary names) for languages since you won't have to type them often; and they are much superior in searchability. The more unique the better for searchability, in fact. Also, can anyone tell me what he's talking about in making C "easy to search on the internet." Finding general information on C has been extremely frustrating.

gnargeot• 17 years ago

The following page explains the usage of the "+" operator on Google search, and mention that some common terms like "C++" receive a special treatment: http://www.googleguide.com/plus_operator.html

wvenable• 17 years ago

Microsoft is the worst for this! .NET is a terrible name to search for. SQL Server Reporting Services is also awful. At least they've seemed to have gotten the clue with Silverlight.

sfwc• 17 years ago

I think "Factor" is a good name for a programming language, it's memorable and it conjures up appropriate mental images. That the word has both of these qualities ensures that it will be used for many other things, and this will be true of most good names. Instead of worrying about the googlability of "Factor", can't we count on people to at least search for "Factor programming language"? And if Google isn't already returning good enough results for that now, I think I'd rather wait a little while for search technology to catch up than compromise on the names of my programming languages.

jonsen• 17 years ago

Look to the pharmaceutical industry: Aspirin, Pinex, Panodil, .............

BerislavLopac• 17 years ago

Similarly, I can only imagine the frustration of Jazz fans when they try looking for their favorite guitarist. :)

Although in this case the last name can help.

jacquesm• 17 years ago

Excellent point, but you can easily expand the list way beyond programming languages. Django is a nice one, sure it is a great tribute to a great musician, but I keeping having to tell google to leave out 'music' when searching for info.

Search engines ought to be smart enough to determine the general context of your searches across several searches in a row but it seems that that is not yet available.

plinkplonk• 17 years ago

His advice would seem to distill to "invent a new word as a name for your language". Would this be a sensible thing to do?

What would some examples of "good" programming language names be? Most languages I can think of have names from {English words} or existing proper nouns and so any non new name has a potential to clash on doing a web search at least till the language name becomes popular enough to rise to the top.

Do we really want new computer language authors to create nonsense phrases as names for their languages?

badsectoracula• 17 years ago

These two searches seem to work: Factor programming language R programming language

So instead of writing "Factor tutorial" (for which btw Google asks you if you mean the language), write "Factor programming language tutorial". Being more specific about what you're looking for helps.

justlearning• 17 years ago

eg of what I think of a badly named language.* I think * clojure is a sorry name for the fascinating language it is.

In the words of Rich Hickey - It's a ploy on closures and is supposed to be pronounced as cloSSure (and the domain was available; fulfilled his requirements of combining c for clr, j for java). Many have been spelling it as cloJure, even stuart halloway(author of the only book available on clojure) has couple of podcasts with cloJure pronounced with the emphasis on J.

my little rant aside, the name(in context to the article) is instant seo juice. input just one word and google spits everything clojure, no distractions from random links.

I have taken a mid way to pronounce clojure - clozure.

s2r2• 17 years ago

At least concerning R there's http://www.rseek.org

GeneralMaximus• 17 years ago

What about Ruby? Python? Java? Those are pretty "normal" terms. The only reason search engines can come up with nice results for those languages is that there are thousands of pages out there which mention the word "python" or "ruby" or "java" in context of programming.

I agree that J and R are (and will be) very hard to search for, but not Factor. If/when the language becomes popular, a Google search for "factor" will be dominated by results that relate to the programming language.

jamesbritt• 17 years ago

I remember the first time I went searching for the Io and Processing languages, expecting that the generality of the names would make it hard. I got good results right away.

On the other hand, some names make it hard to talk about things. For example, much as I like the Sequel ORM for Ruby, having a aural discussion about it is more trouble than it should be because you have to be clear when you are talking about the RUby library or SQL. (Pedant alert: SQL should be pronounced ess que el anyway, but few people do.)

devicenull• 17 years ago

I use a scripting language that was originally named "Small" . As you can imagine, searching for it was terrible. They've since moved to a slightly better name of "pawn".

Think twice before naming your new programming language

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