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- Naming things

- Off by one errors.

Jokes aside, naming things _is_ hard, and it's important too.

Harder one, not just in computer science.

Getting people to grow up.

I am also fed up of American norms being imposed on the entire IT world.

To me when I grew up the main association of the word master was a male school teacher, but American culture must always trump everyone elses. Cultural imperialism.

Coq is a French language, why should they conform to American norms.

Another language had its name changed from Nimrod to Nim because illeterate Americans did not understand that Bugs Bunny was being sarcastic when he reffered to Elmer Fudd as Nimrod - its a biblical reference to a "mighty hunter".

Can the rest of us stick to our own cultural norms please?

Coq is a French language, why should they conform to American norms.

They don't have to. But it's a bit like free speech. You can say what you want but you have to accept the consequences. They appear to have decided that it's impeding usage. C'est la vie :)

Lets face it, there are so many slang words for sex-related parts or activities it would be hard to not come across one. But really looking for names related to a male chicken is always going to end badly, probably by chocking it.

Gah -- you were going to finish with a droll pun-esque joke, but you chocked.

Yes, there are a lot of words in a lot of languages to avoid. I believe international trademark lawyers have a helpful database, so it's perfectly possible to avoid them if you're prepared to put the work (and money) into it.

Into a crowded field I would like to push forward Bosoms as the new name. And I've got a wooden ruler ready for anybody who finds that remotely titillating. Now, maintain eye contact please.

Always a shame when women turn away from coq.

...and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq

This says more about those doing the harassing than those who work on Coq. There is no word or sound in any language that cannot be (ab)used to have some other meaning. Trying to please the zealots only results in more problems.

Or, we can just agree that one word remains: blank . Then we can have meaningful conversations like this:

Blank blank blank, blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank, blank blank blank, blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank, blank blank blank blank blank blank, blank blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank!

How many references to reproductive organs did you find in that text?

@b0llchit

It says all you need to know about the current members of the Eternally Offended cult.

They seem to spend their time searching for reasons to be either offended personally or by proxy on the behalf of people they don't know but make the assumption those people would be offended.

I find those who are easily and constantly offended, to be offensive and I protest!

They usually hang out on Twitter, I hear

It says all you need to know about the current members of the Eternally Offended cult.

Or as Monty Python had it nearly 50 years ago:

Dear Sir, I wish to make a complaint. So please put on something of a highly offensive nature.

Since that's the first thing that comes to mind, Coq au vin.

I don't think there's a programming language called Vin, and who wouldn't want to use a language named after liquid coding inspiration? I can see some confusion might arise visually with "Vim", but only after a few glasses.

It also keeps the French slant, is memorable and slightly whimsical, just as long as it's pronounced correctly.

So, you manage to do work on this [1]graph ? Can't imagine where on the graph you are when vin and vim become indistinguishable.

[1] https://xkcd.com/323/

I was going to come here to say exactly this (before I read past the advert and started giggling), so take my upvote.

Well, almost exactly.

I would have suggested the full suffixual portion: " au Vin " (pronouncing it properly as awVAR+plus a swallowed but distinguishable n). Keeps the link closer to Coq, the "au" makes it clear even to Americans that it's pronounced differently, lets the Parisians still get snotty about cons* mangling French -- everyone wins!

.

.

* "Con" (sing.), "Cons" (pl.): haven 't heard a female anatomy version; only the Stupid/LowClass/Ignoramus/SneerAtTheFool meaning. E.g. the movie [1]Le Diner de Cons .

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119038/

Since that's the first thing that comes to mind, Coq au vin.

She was impressed by his offer to feed her Coq au Vin until she saw the Transit.

the one-eyed purple-veined theorem prover. Sorted.

Just call it "MathProver" or something descriptive. Why do software projects need to have silly titles? Just name things based on what they do... Much less likely to pick something that sounds like something else.

They need a silly name so they can be trademarked and Googled.

Eg Vulkan is called that entirely to prevent the problem OpenGL has, where almost all the top hits were showing how to use long deprecated parts of the API.

Sadly some marketeers still don't understand this and insist on inserting punctuation to make it different, thus making the product trademarkable, but impossible to Google as it coerces all punctuation to a space.

Just call it "MathProver" or something descriptive

Because English isn't the only language used on this planet and the authors of the project are French speakers where coq doesn't have the connotations the word has in the English language.

..and even on this side of the pond we might oblect to "Math" as we all know it should be "Maths"...

... Coq. It's what it's always going to be called anyway.

Treat anyone who insists on having a fit of giggles when discussing it as the children that they are, and invite them to return to the conversation after they grow up.

Likewise, also treat anyone who is offended by the name as children. It's a fucking programming language, you pampered, overly protected little precious babies.

It's all in the context ... If you are talking about a programming language, what kind of dirty minded twit automatically assumes it has to do with a penis? Why should anyone using said language change their behavio(u)r just to keep these very few and far between hand-wringers and namby-pambys happy?

Have you ever met any engineers? Or, indeed, any people at all?

"Have you ever met any engineers?"

Well, I are one, so ...

Unfortunately, treating everyone you might want to get involved with your Coq project like children seldom goes down well, regardless of necessity. And how many times do you want to go through the "It's a fucking programming language..." conversation before you think "sod it, it's just going to be easier to change the name?"

Some challenges or problems are best to meet head-on. Other times, it's just more practical to side-step.

"Unfortunately, treating everyone you might want to get involved with your Coq project like children "

Where, exactly, did I suggest that?

"And how many times do you want to go through the "It's a fucking programming language..." conversation before you think "sod it, it's just going to be easier to change the name?""

To date, when discussing ANY programming language with programming professionals, I have never, not once, had to remind anyone it was a programming language that we were discussing. Professionals are funny that way, they understand what words mean in a given context.

"Some challenges or problems are best to meet head-on. Other times, it's just more practical to side-step."

I flat refuse to allow namby-pamby hand-wringers to pervert perfectly good technical terms just to make them feel all warm and cozy inside. THEY are the ones with the problem, not the technical language.

"Where, exactly, did I suggest that?"

My apologies. Perhaps I should have used the phrase "some people" rather than "everyone".

By and large, I agree with your general sentiment. Most educated people know what terms like "blacklist" and "whitelist" mean in a technical context. However, it is clear that the name of this particular programming language is a barrier to those who maintain it. I've been developing software for close to a decade, and I'd never heard of Coq. I suspect that most of my immediate colleagues haven't either. If you dropped that name into a sentence, I would think you were using the slang term. I know at least a couple of my colleagues would have a snigger (one of whom is the IT director here, and I don't think that treating him like a child is a particularly good career move).

Looking for a name with fewer negative connotations doesn't seem unreasonable in this case.

> "This similarity has already led to some women turning away from Coq and others getting harassed when they said they were working on Coq," the project wiki, last updated on Friday, explains. "It also makes some English conversations about Coq with lay persons simply more difficult."

...this paragraph gave me the giggles despite knowing the actual situation. Well done, Thomas, well done.

I've never been a fan of Coq, in fact, Coq sucks.

I'll get my coat...

"I've never been a fan of Coq"

Why? Was it hard?

If Coq sucks for you, you might need a Coq proof assistant.

Either that, or you're holding it wrong.

Face it. English is not the only language of the Universe. The fact that a foreign word sounds bad in English, and one can't understand it's a foreign word, just means that person is an ignorant English supremacist. And they should be shamed as such.

If they can't understand differences, have to destroy them because they can live only in their little poor world it's they that have to change, not the others.

For a far older example of the French doing this, consider the name of Merlin (Arthur's magician). He was called Myrddin in the Welsh folk-tales (Carmarthen, or Caerfyrddin, means Merlin's fort). When the French romance-writers started using them as source material, they altered the name to avoid the pun on merde.

Meh, English isn't a language, it's the linguistic equivalent of the Borg collective.

Lower your shields and surrender your language! We will add your linguistic distinctiveness to our own. Your language will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!

How about...

THRUST

Theorem HeuRistic Uncertainty Specious Tits

or-rrrr...

SPREM

Systematically Proving Rithmetic En' Maths

If they want to keep the history AND the reference&tribute to the early contributor, why not use a standard follow-on via Word Association (football) as per "Vin" above?

So: Monsieur Coquand

BALLS

Wait until they come across GIMP.

We've already done that one to death.

The folks in charge ultimately did the right thing. It's still called GIMP.

So the whiners forked it (ooo, er ... ) around two years ago.

I haven't yet seen a glimpse of the fork in the wild.

Smut names make everything better. Even more so if unintentional!

This was another good one:

http://aliprandi.blogspot.com/2013/03/inkulator-sounds-funny-for-italians.html

I guess that was one of the very first times that being born there ( and speaking the language ) turned out to be an advantage :-)

Why do we never hear of companies called Poussi or Minjj or Biivur? It's always nob names. Sexist I tell ya! ;-)

On a discussion thread regarding Coq and what advert shows up? One for Cockroach DB.

That's insexism, that is.

Entomoism, Shirley.

I prefer yours, to be honest.

If you are looking for a chicken-related name, then how about "Kentucky"?

We have "Java" as a coffee-related name for a programming language.

Or Yardbird.

Given the sounds that cover up four-letter words on TV, how about using the name *Bleep*? I'm sure a suitable backronym can be found. "p" could obviously stand for "prover", and "l" could stand for "logic", but the people behind the language would probably prefer French words. Any suggestions?

from

Cock-A-Doodle-Do!

AlphaGoo would probably sue.

For starters, it keeps the "French Connection"

can't think of anything else at the moment