[oneplane]

At first I thought this was about Mac OS around the 9 and 10 times... but I suppose not everyone is going to make that link with this name.

[rgovostes]

Apple's Cocoa framework itself reused the name of a 90's visual programming language for kids developed by its own Advanced Technology Group. It was certainly a play on "java for kids."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecast_Creator

[lioeters]

That's the first time I heard of Cocoa as "Java for kids". How cute!

[mathgeek]

You’re certainly not the only one. It’s a confusing choice of naming.

[cflewis]

I think the statute of limitations on “confusing name” when Mac OS Carbon was removed from OS X 10 years ago has passed.

[oneplane]

Since those old operating systems are now vintage or retro, there have been a few people porting things like Rust, Go and Swift to older Mac OS versions (the ones that use the Toolbox ROM) which was also in the news here.

There is of course no 'registry of allowed names that have aged-out' but there are probably other creative names one could come up with.

[morelisp]

Carbon was removed two years ago.

[astrange]

Well, the API was. There's still bits of it internally driving the menu and event systems, and a lot of app/icon/Finder behaviors.

[olliej]

Yeah, I was confused by the name carbon, but am able to recognize that what I think of by default is not relevant anymore.

[Someone]

I hope they picked that name for the same reason Apple picked it: because all life is built on carbon.

[oneplane]

Or because Carbon as an element is "C" and "C" is also the language the framework was built for.

[Maursault]

Well, Apple was a little clever with Carbon for this reason, because it was a C based API. I'm not sure how you get Carbon from C++.

[tambourine_man]

Also, the UI was called Aqua. So Aqua + Carbon is an interesting metaphor for an OS ecosystem.

[schoen]

Apparently, although it's not likely to occur under most conditions, you can form a monatomic carbon C²⁺ ion by shooting a laser into very high-temperature carbon:

https://sciencetrends.com/the-charge-of-a-carbon-ion/

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4966987

"Up to C⁴⁺ ions are observed."

And I guess you could also write the C²⁺ ion as "C⁺⁺" if you wanted. :-)

[Dylan16807]

That just makes the comparison worse, if it's difficult and unstable and almost immediately sheds the +s.

[sedatk]

I mean, it's at least a bit less ambiguous than Go.

[hinkley]

I got as far as “surely they can’t be talking about OS 9, someone must have recycled the name”