On 2015-09-17 at 15:04, Robert Edmonds wrote: > Wookey wrote: > >> +++ Raphael Hertzog [2015-09-17 14:41 +0200]:
>>> Please don't call this feature "Bikesheds" and don't hardcode >>> this naming in the suggested API. It was funny during one Debconf >>> talk... but it won't be funny in the long term. >> >> It wasn't supposed to be a joke. Bikeshed is an appropriate name, >> in the unix tradition of mildly amusing/punny names. > > Which tradition would that be? > > Out of the few hundred or so Unix [0] and GNU [1] commands listed on > Wikipedia, the only vaguely amusing/punning names I can find are tac > ("cat" backwards) and pinky (a lightweight "finger"). There's also nano; it's named for similarity to pico, which I believe was named as a shortening of "pine composer". pine in its turn was (I believe) named for similarity to elm, which was an abbreviation for something I forget. Both the names pine and nano are "amusing/punny" in that sense. Also, the GIMP is a play on words of its own - and for that matter, the recursive acronym "GNU" is a similar piece of wordplay. I concur that this sort of wordplay in naming is a *nix tradition; however, I withhold comment as to whether the name "bikeshed" is appropriate in this case, as the first I remember hearing about them is this thread and I don't know enough about the context to form a defensible opinion. -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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