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by geokon 1135 days ago
Not to detract from everything else.. I've gotta say, that's the most confusing library name possible. First I thought it's a website about Julia plotting libraries. Then I thought it's a new Julia default plotting interface (with actual plotting libraries as backends). Then after I saw the code I realized that it's a library that literally called "plots"...

I'm sure it's great SEO though
2 comments
sundarurfriend 1135 days ago
Are you referring to Plots.jl? All Julia libraries end with a .jl in their name; sort of like how many Python libraries start with `py`, and Rust libraries have `rs` as a suffix. Having it be universal makes it more consistent, and leaves the rest of the name to be completely about the content of the package. In my experience/opinion, that has lead to better package names (though Julia's package naming policies also help a lot).

> Then I thought it's a new Julia default plotting interface (with actual plotting libraries as backends). Then after I saw the code I realized that it's a library that literally called "plots"...

It's both. It's a library called Plots.jl, that's a plotting interface to backend plotting libraries. It's not "new", not "default" in the sense of built-in, but usually the recommend first option for most use cases.

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geokon 1135 days ago
the `.jl` was in effect dropped. Tbh, I landed on the page and started to skim it and it was highly confusing..

Just try to read the landing page without realizing "Plots" is a proper name :))

"juliaplots.org" - looks like a website about plotting in Julia

"Plots - powerful convenience for visualization in Julia" I guess they are...

"Almost everything in Plots is done by specifying plot attributes." I guess you could abstract all plotting that way.. interesting take

"Intro to Plots in Julia" an introduction to plotting in Julia!

"Plots is a visualization interface and toolset" I guess that's a way to think about plotting.. kinda philosophical.. but okay

Only when I got to this sentence "Plots might be the last plotting package you ever learn." did I realize this was the actual proper name of the library :))

I can also imagine using the name in conversation would lead to ridiculous things like "You should making your plots with plots" etc.

Anyway, it's just a bit confusing when you skim it. It's gotta be one of the most unusual library names I've seen

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goerz 1134 days ago
It’s pretty typical for the conventions of Julia package naming… Plots, Statistics, DifferentialEquations, …
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stellalo 1135 days ago
The library is called Plots because it plots, what is confusing about it?
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