creating a new language

[Jan Burse]

I know that I would never chose a language
based on how easy it is to search for in google.

I find it hard to believe that other will.

But ....


Arne

And would it matter whether it is easy to
pronounce? As the mcheung asks?

I guess you might believe that your (in)conciousness
is immune to any of these issues, pronounciation
and/or google search. But many studies show that
names are important in marketing.

Let's take the example of choosing a business
name. The pronounciation is only one item
in a check list:

Can the proposed name be pronounced easily?
[...]
http://marketing.about.com/cs/marketingjobs/a/biznametest.htm

But you find also items such as:

Does it spark interest? Is there a story behind it?
[...]

But in modern times it is not enough to work
along a simple check list that doesn't contain
any SEO. So its also better to watch for:

Search engine optimisation (SEO) plays a
critical role in building an online
presence. Talk to any SEO specialists and
inevitably, they will recommended that
your mindset should be set towards optimisation
at the earliest possible stage. Even business
names can benefit from the careful use of
current SEO techniques.

http://blog.businessname.com.au/seo-and-choosing-the-best-business-names/

Bye

P.S.: My favorite programming language name is:

brainfuck
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

But there are a couple of other programming language
names equally evocative.

 

[Jan Burse]

But there are a couple of other programming language
names equally evocative.

4.1 Befunge
4.2 Binary Lambda Calculus
4.3 Brainfuck
4.4 Chef
4.5 FALSE
4.6 INTERCAL
4.7 LOLCODE
4.8 Malbolge
4.9 One instruction set computer
4.10 Piet
4.11 Shakespeare
4.12 Whitespace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language

 

[Lew]

4.1 Befunge
4.2 Binary Lambda Calculus
4.3 Brainfuck
4.4 Chef
4.5 FALSE
4.6 INTERCAL
4.7 LOLCODE
4.8 Malbolge
4.9 One instruction set computer
4.10 Piet
4.11 Shakespeare
4.12 Whitespace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_programming_language

Then there are the non-esoteric ones: SNOBOL, LISP, WATFOR, WATFIV, COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, Haskell, Simula, FORTH, Algol, Jorf, perl, bash, zsh (terrible vowel count), csh, SQL, dBase/xBase, XML, Smalltalk, assembler, machine code, JCL, cheese, Paradox, cheese, Ada, cheese, p-code, cheese, bytecode, FORTRAN, cheese. cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.

 

[Jan Burse]

... assembler, machine code ...

And then there are animal >names<:
... dog, cat, ...

BTW: One finds a couple name generators on the net:

http://www.fantasynamegen.com/

 

[Joerg Meier]

He could try "hiybbprqag" ...

How about T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM ?

Liebe Gruesse,
Joerg

 

[Arved Sandstrom]

On 07/24/2013 07:10 PM, Lew wrote:
[ SNIP ]

OTOH, a cloud language (what *is* a "cloud language"?) might not be named with a variant
of some Latin word for a type of cloud.

I'm trying to wrap my head around that too, as in "what *is* a 'cloud
language'"? In terms of being "cloud-aware", this is achievable in many
current languages, you just need to code differently: things like not
localizing storage, using location services, supporting horizontal
scaleability etc.

AHS

 

[Joerg Meier]

On 07/24/2013 07:10 PM, Lew wrote:
[ SNIP ]

OTOH, a cloud language (what *is* a "cloud language"?) might not be named with a variant
of some Latin word for a type of cloud.

I'm trying to wrap my head around that too, as in "what *is* a 'cloud
language'"? In terms of being "cloud-aware", this is achievable in many
current languages, you just need to code differently: things like not
localizing storage, using location services, supporting horizontal
scaleability etc.

My guess was that it was a language designed to write applications that run
in a distributed way such as SETI@Home.

Liebe Gruesse,
Joerg

 

[Eric Sosman]

On 07/24/2013 07:10 PM, Lew wrote:
[ SNIP ]

OTOH, a cloud language (what *is* a "cloud language"?) might not be
named with a variant
of some Latin word for a type of cloud.

I'm trying to wrap my head around that too, as in "what *is* a 'cloud
language'"?[...]

A cloud language is any language used in vaporware. That is,
any language.

(When vaporware is loudly promoted and unusually destructive,
it's thunderware.)

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I know that I would never chose a language
based on how easy it is to search for in google.

I find it hard to believe that other will.

But ....

And would it matter whether it is easy to
pronounce? As the mcheung asks?
No.

I guess you might believe that your (in)conciousness
is immune to any of these issues, pronounciation
and/or google search. But many studies show that
names are important in marketing.

Let's take the example of choosing a business
name. The pronounciation is only one item
in a check list:

Can the proposed name be pronounced easily?
[...]
http://marketing.about.com/cs/marketingjobs/a/biznametest.htm

But you find also items such as:

Does it spark interest? Is there a story behind it?
[...]

But in modern times it is not enough to work
along a simple check list that doesn't contain
any SEO. So its also better to watch for:

Search engine optimisation (SEO) plays a
critical role in building an online
presence. Talk to any SEO specialists and
inevitably, they will recommended that
your mindset should be set towards optimisation
at the earliest possible stage. Even business
names can benefit from the careful use of
current SEO techniques.

http://blog.businessname.com.au/seo-and-choosing-the-best-business-names/

And?

Unless you can show that programming language names and
business names share characteristica then I do not see
the point.

I can tell you that I have never tried how easy a programming
language is too google as part of deciding what programming language
to use for a project.

And I would like to hear somebody say that they have. It does
not make any sense at all.

Businesses have sold things to me because they were easy
to find via google. Not often - I am lazy and usually use
Amazon - but sometimes.

But I don't use the same process for those two scenarios.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I was going to suggest Yggdrasl but it has a number of other uses already.
OTOH Beta-2 is pretty much unambiguous despite its SF antecedents.

Given http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BETA then I would say that
name would be confusing.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 07/24/2013 07:10 PM, Lew wrote:
[ SNIP ]

OTOH, a cloud language (what *is* a "cloud language"?) might not be
named with a variant
of some Latin word for a type of cloud.

I'm trying to wrap my head around that too, as in "what *is* a 'cloud
language'"? In terms of being "cloud-aware", this is achievable in many
current languages, you just need to code differently: things like not
localizing storage, using location services, supporting horizontal
scaleability etc.

Good question.

Languages with PaaS available??

Arne

 

[Jan Burse]

But I don't use the same process for those two scenarios.

I guess you feel professionally intimitdated
by the picture of psychological effects in decision
making. So you herald the romantic picture of
informed engineering decision making.

The informeed decision making where one makes
a long weighted list of criterias, then looks
at each product and takes the product with the
best total score.

But how do you choose the products for evaluation
in the first place? There is huge noise of
products out there. And some names will stick
to your memory and you will consider these
products.

And marketing is happy when it can manage to
sneak into your mind at this early stage. For
the evaluation process later there is no
responsibility of the marketing department.

To have a good score on your evaluation, the
engineering department is responsible. Or
at an early stage the research & development
department.

Do you get it, what the goal is?

Bye

 

[Jan Burse]

To have a good score on your evaluation, the
engineering department is responsible. Or
at an early stage the research & development
department.

In some product classes there is anyway the issue
that the engineering department is unimportant.
Since it is always possible to make top score
in important criterias. Take for example fruit
juice, they will all be handled hygienic, so
in the end marketing department is the most
important.

We will soon also see an end of the engineering
department for programming language design.
There will be enough powerful meta languages
around, including JIT chains, so that programming
languages are nothing else then DSLs. It will
be harder and harder to find differentiating
criterias.

So basically modern programming language design
will address the taste of end-users similar
like fruit juice does. And some end-users have
this taste and others have this taste. Today
you can basically launch a new language with
1 language engineer and 10 web designers who
make fancy websites, blogs, etc.. about the
new language.

Bye

 

[Joerg Meier]

Unless you can show that programming language names and
business names share characteristica then I do not see
the point.

I can tell you that I have never tried how easy a programming
language is too google as part of deciding what programming language
to use for a project.

And I would like to hear somebody say that they have. It does
not make any sense at all.

That's because you think about it from the wrong end. Sure, once you
decided you might want to use a language, its name wont matter much. But if
you look into a language, and have a lot of trouble finding documentation,
examples and other resources on Google, you might decide that the language
is not worth the trouble of having no easy access to information, without
ever even getting to the point of promoting that language to be an actual
choice.

God knows one of the reasons I appreciate Java so much is because it is so
very easy and convenient to find whatever I want to know about it on
Google.

Liebe Gruesse,
Joerg

 

[Arved Sandstrom]

That's because you think about it from the wrong end. Sure, once you
decided you might want to use a language, its name wont matter much. But if
you look into a language, and have a lot of trouble finding documentation,
examples and other resources on Google, you might decide that the language
is not worth the trouble of having no easy access to information, without
ever even getting to the point of promoting that language to be an actual
choice.

God knows one of the reasons I appreciate Java so much is because it is so
very easy and convenient to find whatever I want to know about it on
Google.

Liebe Gruesse,
Joerg

The programming languages J and K, both based off APL, suffer from this
because they are niche, albeit powerful and capable. You pretty much
have to add "programming" or similar as a keyword.

R, on the other hand, even though it's also a single letter, has no
problems on Google, because so many people use it.

In a way a seemingly poor name doesn't matter much on Google. In early
stages of adoption few people locate a language through Google, because
they don't know about it - they find out via other mechanisms. Once they
are interested (the early adopters) they do use Google, with refined
searches, and that generates the hits that make sure that a single-name
search by follow-on enthusiasts does start to percolate toward the first
few search pages. Assuming the language gets popular.

One of the problems with Java and Google is that you find so much dreck.
There is a happy medium.

AHS

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

I guess you feel professionally intimitdated
by the picture of psychological effects in decision
making. So you herald the romantic picture of
informed engineering decision making.

In fact I do.

The informeed decision making where one makes
a long weighted list of criterias, then looks
at each product and takes the product with the
best total score.

It can be done less or more formalized.

But how do you choose the products for evaluation
in the first place? There is huge noise of
products out there. And some names will stick
to your memory and you will consider these
products.

Actually not.

If we look at the matrix:

characteristics characteristics
suited for problem not suited for problem
remember name A B
not remember name C D

Then I will not consider A+B but A+C.

For C I will just need to google the characteristics to find
the name,

And marketing is happy when it can manage to
sneak into your mind at this early stage. For
the evaluation process later there is no
responsibility of the marketing department.

That is how it works for laundry detergent, canned soup etc..

But it is not how it works for programming languages.

For a couple of reasons:
* decisions are not made impulsive but after analysis
* very few programming languages has a marketing department

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

In some product classes there is anyway the issue
that the engineering department is unimportant.
Since it is always possible to make top score
in important criterias. Take for example fruit
juice, they will all be handled hygienic, so
in the end marketing department is the most
important.

We will soon also see an end of the engineering
department for programming language design.
There will be enough powerful meta languages
around, including JIT chains, so that programming
languages are nothing else then DSLs. It will
be harder and harder to find differentiating
criterias.

So basically modern programming language design
will address the taste of end-users similar
like fruit juice does. And some end-users have
this taste and others have this taste. Today
you can basically launch a new language with
1 language engineer and 10 web designers who
make fancy websites, blogs, etc.. about the
new language.

Given that UI's in most cases look identical
to the end users no matter what programming
language is used, then I find that very hard
to believe.

Arne

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

That's because you think about it from the wrong end. Sure, once you
decided you might want to use a language, its name wont matter much. But if
you look into a language, and have a lot of trouble finding documentation,
examples and other resources on Google, you might decide that the language
is not worth the trouble of having no easy access to information, without
ever even getting to the point of promoting that language to be an actual
choice.

Lack of documentation etc. would certainly be a negative for a
programming language.

But if it is there then one can find it whether the name is
unique or not.

God knows one of the reasons I appreciate Java so much is because it is so
very easy and convenient to find whatever I want to know about it on
Google.

Exactly.

Java is not a google friendly name for a programming language
as there are lots of things called Java:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(disambiguation)

But in reality that is not a problem. We can easily find the
documentation etc. we need anyway. Because the other search
words we use tell Google what Java it is.

Arne

 

[Andreas Leitgeb]

Oberon - 43%

huh?

 

[Eric Sosman]

Three vowels, three consonants, one parity letter (not shown).