From: Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk@...>
Date: 2004-05-25T06:16:49+09:00
Subject: Re: [SemiOT] Concerning package names

Hal Fulton wrote:
> Wouldn't it though? :)
> 
> Back in the 80s, there was some kind of "namer" software that would
> query you for keywords and adjectives and such; it would then piece
> together prefixes and suffixes and fragments and generate random
> names such as "OctaMind" for you to consider.
> 
> Very amusing idea, and it got good reviews. I wonder how many
> commercial products actually got named this way?

What about the late '90s names picked by high priced consultants:

* Accenture
* Agere
* Agilent
* Aventis
...

There is something to be said for picking a name that has nothing at all 
to do with your product (Apple, Monster, Yahoo, Amazon), but generally 
if you know what your focus is, you should pick something reflecting 
that focus.  If you're hungry, would you rather eat at Bangkok Cafe or 
at "Anuva"?

I think in a lot of cases it makes sense to have Ruby in the name of a 
package, especially when it is a bridge between two worlds (ruby-mysql, 
ruby-gtk, etc.) but when it just does some function, that name might 
just be enough: (yaml, htmltokenizer, ...)  But hey, if your software 
might do anything and everything and you don't want to be pigeonholed... 
by all means, go for Agurajamaniro.

Ben