[Pipet Devel] name game (was: summary for web page and announcements)

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Brad wrote:
> 
> So Hedgehog is a protein that coordinates cells to develop in a good
> way, and vsh is a program that coordinates programs and libraries to
> flow together in a good way.
>
>     Whadda you all think? The added advantages are that it has a easy
> acronym (hh) and that we can put pictures of hedgehogs on our site
> without people taking us away to the mental hospital :-)

Jean-Marc Valin wrote:
> 
> I would prefer a name that has a meaning to everybody. Also, it has to reflect
> the fact that you can use the software for many applications, from biology to
> speech and image processing. I think it would be nice to have the word "flow" in
> the name (that's why I chose "Overflow") if possible (but I won't complain too
> much if we don't).

I think Hedgehog is cute.  But being so, it is probably taken :-/

I guess I agree with Jean-Marc that the name should give the prospective user
some indication as to what the program does.  I get the Hedgehog analogy, but
non-biologists would not.

I was growing fond of VSh, particularly 'GNU Visual Shell'.  I like it for the
following reasons:

  * To say that the program is 'THE' visual shell for GNU is
    pretentious and presumptuous, and it will garner the 
    attention the program deserves.

  * 'Visual Shell' and even VSh say exactly what we're the
    program is: a visual shell!  The term is commonly used
    to describe graphical environments like Gnome, but I
    could find only one program that used it (in 1984) as
    a name.

    You know, but Gnome, KDE, and the stuff Eazel is working
    on...THAT'S ALL WIN/MAC CRAP!  Let's show everyone how
    a true UNIX *shell* should work!

  * I *REALLY* want to have the word 'GNU' in the name.
    That alone will attract attention and tell people
    that this is free-as-in-speech software.

A couple people pointed out to me that we could abbreviate 'GNU Visual Shell'
as 'vshgnu' (like the Hindu god Vishnu).  It'd be cute, if it isn't offensive
to any Hindus ;-)  And 'gnu' pronounced as 'new' can indicate that this is the
'New VSh' (the old VSh being from 1984).

Cheers.
Jeff
-- 
                      +----------------------------------+
                      |           J.W. Bizzaro           |
                      |                                  |
                      | http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff/ |
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                      |        BIOINFORMATICS.ORG        |
                      |           The Open Lab           |
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                      |    http://bioinformatics.org/    |
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