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by Soft 2615 days ago
I think it is useful for projects to have a searchable unique names. Also, I think the desktop files for those programs also include a generic name describing program's function that an application launcher can decide to show instead.

For example, my KDE application menu refers to applications using these generic description ("Web Browser" instead of Firefox, "Music Player" instead of Spotify).

1 comments

Agreed on the ability to search for programs, add to that the difficulty in creating a meaningful name that won't confuse at least some users and doesn't step on trademarks or other project names. Even popular software titles have naming issues, with brand recognition being the main distinguishing factor that helps people figure out what the software does:

- Excel, says absolutely nothing about what the product does.

- PowerPoint is only tangentially related to what the product does.

- Internet Explorer vs. Windows Explorer confuses many users.

To avoid singling out just Microsoft, look at Apple:

- Numbers basically depends upon people associating spreadsheets with any form of quantitative analysis.

- Keynote is only tangentially related to what the product does.

- Safari says absolutely nothing about what the program does.

Contrast that to the brilliantly named GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is clearly a program for enhancing photographs of gnu's! Okay, maybe it's not so brilliant. Yet it does demonstrate that naming is hard even when the name states what the program is.