[rjh29]

I wish people would stop using common nouns for program names, not only is it hard to search for, but it's kind of ... arrogant? Like you think you're the best there is and will ever be for that particular noun? Imagine if Google Chrome renamed to 'Browser'

[gwervc]

That's a pet peeve of mine for a long time. It pollutes the global namespace, it's hard to search for, gives no information on what the product or company does (e.g. Alphabet) and lacks originality.

Edit: as someone noted in a siblings comment, it's also make harder to help people. I had a hard time making someone install "Signal" at a stressing time because that's just a normal word in French.

[Zambyte]

> It pollutes the global namespace

I think we should rely less on global namespaces. DNS was designed in a way that specifically allows for the same name to mean different things for different people. I should be able to use my first name as a domain name if I want. Other people should also be able to use their first name if they want. Other people still should be able to use whatever domain they want to disambiguate between the two. This is a feature of all high level programming languages within a rounding error.

> it's hard to search for

It was the first result for me on Kagi when I searched "video lang". I also tested Google and DDG and unfortunately it didn't even make the first page. I wonder why Kagi was able to surface it, but not the other two.

Either way, I recommend using search engines for discovery rather than recall, and you've already discovered this through other means. For recall, save a link to it. I personally use Org Roam for capture and recall.

> I had a hard time making someone install "Signal" at a stressing time because that's just a normal word in French.

The English word comes from the French word[0], but as an English speaker at least, the name makes a lot of sense to me. Particularly, it is a descriptive name that to me doesn't feel super generic like video lang.

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/signal

[LeifAndersen]

Author here:

The idea for calling it Video originated from it just being a library in Racket for editing videos. The name `video` fit the trend for packages in Racket at the time:

* `pict` - was an existing library for making pictures * `slideshow` - was an existing library for making slideshows * `math` - was an existing library for...well..math (beyond what the language natively provided) * `web-server` - was an existing library for making webservers.

You get the idea, extending it:

* `video` - was a new (and thus far only in Racket) library for making videos. (note the lower case `v`)

Unfortunately video grew far beyond what I expected it to (yes still small, but I honestly expected to be the only user ever, rather then one of a dozen or so users). Unfortunately as mentioned in previous comments, I suck at naming things. But also unfortunately, no one else offered another name. So video just sort of...stuck. I eventually tacked `Lang` onto the end of it, and made the initial `V` uppercase in a desperate attempt to give it a slightly more unique name. But then that became too close to videolan...which...sigh...did I mention I fucking suck at naming things?

[Doctor_Fegg]

The number of people who call Google Maps just “Maps” is continually depressing.

[n3storm]

I agree. Giving instructions to untrained people becomes a nightmare.

[rscho]

In this context, you'd import the language just like a library, and feed the file to the Racket compiler. This an embedded language, so there can be no confusion.

[roydivision]

Hey Apple, are you listening? Pages, Numbers, Photos, Finder, Messages...

[oersted]

To be fair these are part of a preinstalled suite of native apps, an extension of the OS, rather than being part of the larger app ecosystem. You could argue that implicitly they have the brand-name in front: e.g. "Apple/Mac Photos" or "iMessage".

Every OS has a "Calculator" or something like "Notes", these are reasonable names. Just like you have Google/Apple "Maps" or "Calendar". It's standard to use such naming for apps within a branded suite.

[shiroiushi]

Yeah, that's basically how I treat Google stuff with generic names: I call them "Google Maps", "Google Photos", etc. When I hear Apple users talk about their music service, they call it "Apple Music".

[fragmede]

> Every OS has a "Calculator"

wait till you hear about iPadOS

[ryukoposting]

Oh, they know. The arrogance is intentional.

[nextaccountic]

Also Gnome