On 16/09/2026 5:32 pm, Mario Domenech Goulart wrote:
One unrelated question that came up in a conversation with my
colleagues: Why the name "Chicken"? I like it, but I'm curious :)
From https://spin.atomicobject.com/chicken-scheme-spock-part-2/ :
I [Felix] had a plastic toy of Feathers McGraw on my desk, the evil
penguin (disguised as a chicken!) from the Wallace and Gromit movie,
“The Wrong Trousers.” Looking for a preliminary working title for the
compiler, I used the first thing that came to my mind that day. I’m
somewhat superstitious about names for software projects, and things
were progressing well, so I didn’t dare to change the name.
Also, there is the old philosophical question: which came first, the
chicken or the egg? This applies to CHICKEN, too. The compiler is
written in Scheme, so you need CHICKEN in order to compile CHICKEN.
I love the name even more, now :)
