The Naming of Software

Chris Tyler's Blog

The Naming of Software Mon, Apr 14. 2008


There are many different factors to be taken into account when naming an open source project: trademark conflicts, meaning in multiple languages, memorability, thought association, similarity to existing names, family naming schemes (heaven forbid that a KDE app not have a k shoehorned into the name somewhere!), and more. But let me add one more to the list: searchability.

Two examples of projects that failed to take searchability into account spring to mind (and there are many others): C# and KVM -- C# because it contained a character that many search engines of the day couldn't search on, and KVM because there were millions of web pages in existence discussing keyboard/video/mouse switches that cause search collisions (and many of those pages also contained "virtual" or "machine", while many kernel virtual machine pages didn't contain the word "kernel", "virtual", or "machine").

So please: when picking a name for a project, have Google and its colleagues look over your shortlist!

Posted by Chris Tyler in CDOT, E-COMmon Sense, Fedora, opensource@seneca Comments: (4) Trackbacks: (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 - Michael DeHaan said:
2008-04-14 12:27 - (Reply)

C# also doomed because it has the "I'm a commonly used musical note" problem. That and it is also an instrument of evil.

#2 - Ted Mielczarek said:
2008-04-15 18:09 - (Reply)

Haha, similarly, I was just mentioning to some of my colleagues that there's a Canadian short animated film that I really like called "To Be". It was practically impossible for me to find it when I was looking for it.

#3 - JC 2008-11-06 23:47 - (Reply)

Not to mention the musical group "the the"

#4 - Alicia Lavis said:
2011-09-28 23:23 - (Reply)

Right...I myself sometimes get confuse when searching something related to C#. Why don't they using another name, anything without # sign.


Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA