> On Friday 12 January 2007 08:43, Carl Cerecke wrote: >> evince is a rarely used word: >> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evince > You learn a new one every day. > >> flpsed is pretty random[1] though. > Not once you know the derivation(s). > > FL - taken from the Fast and Light toolkit. > PS - PostScript > ED - EDitor. > > Yes, I agree that Software geeks are not given to spending time thinking > up good marketing names. Having agonised through the process in the > past, I assure you it takes a long time to come up with a good name > because almost all the decent ones have been taken already. Time which > many think is better spent on writing quality code. A sentiment with > which I tend to agree. What's in a handle after all?
A significant barrier to adoption is whats in the name. One of the fairly recent successes of linux desktops has been to put names like (e.g.) "Picture editor" in the menu instead of "gimp". More people would use flpsed if they saw "PDF Editor" in the menu than "flpsed". I prefer the approach to put both, so that old hands still know exactly what they are getting, eg "flpsed (PDF Editor)" > >> Cheers, >> Carl. >> >> [1] Random is my 9yr old daughter's most recent 'word'. Every second >> thing is 'random'. >> Wait, the next one is "gay". As in Parent: "bedtime now" Child: "thats gay" Gay appears to be a word that has changed meanings at least twice in my lifetime. I am used to them changing once, but twice makes me feel old!
