[tor-dev] Renaming arm

[Mike Perry]

Damian Johnson:
> Hmmm, thread about something as squishing and infinitely debatable as
> a name. What could go wrong? But before you get excited I've already
> picked one, this is just to sanity check with the community that I'm
> not making a stupid mistake... again.
> 
> Five years ago when I started arm [1] I had the following criteria for
> picking its name...
> 
>   1. It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything
> lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
> 
>   2. It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
> 
>   3. No naming conflict with other technical things. Body parts though
> are fair game though.
> 
> Clearly the name failed at #3. When I picked it the ARM processor was
> just barely becoming a thing, but time marched on and now every irc
> discussion goes...
> 
>   new_person: New relay operator here, any tips?
>   somebody: Hey, try arm!
>   new_person: The processor? I'm so confused now.
>   somebody: Nope, something completely different. It's a confusing name.
>
> I'm rewriting the whole bloody codebase so why not fix this along the way?
> 
> So without further ado the name I've picked is 'Seth'. It's easy to
> type (#1), memorable (#2), and from what I can tell no SETH processors
> are on the horizon. I've reserved the name on PyPI, and searchs on
> wikipedia looks fine (most interesting match is the Egyptian god [2],
> which is actually kinda neat).

Not to be a downer, but I'm not sure a common name like Seth really
solves the problem here. I can already foresee:

 new_person: New relay operator here, any tips?
 somebody: Hey, try Seth!
 new_person: The EFF technologist who posts on tor-talk?
 new_person: Does he help with relay admin stuff, too?
 somebody: Nope, it's something completely different. It's a confusing name.

Conversational confusion aside, one of my pet peeves is being unable to
search the web for a piece of software by name only and find it on the
first page. A program named "Seth" is likely going to be as difficult to
find as "arm" was/is.

> so now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community.
> Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet
> so still open to alternatives.

Here's some random tips for picking a memorable brand/business name that
might help. I've sorted these roughly in order of how applicable they
seem to be to software (most relevant urls first), and included some
comments below each URL:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223401
 - "Seth" violates tip #2, #5, and probably #7 here.

http://grasshopper.com/blog/playin-the-name-game-9-savvy-tips-for-naming-your-business/
 - "Seth" violates tip #1, #2, #5 directly, and some others indirectly.

http://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2013/may/17/11-tips-for-creating-great-brand-names/
 - These tips are more about a brainstorming process, but it seems
   clear to me that "Seth" wouldn't arise from this type of process.
   That probably is another warning sign.


 

-- 
Mike Perry
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