Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

The Hacker News discussion revolving around software naming conventions reveals three primary, often opposing, themes:

1. The Conflict Between Descriptive Clarity and Arbitrary/Whimsical Naming

Many users felt that descriptive names offer superior clarity, especially during debugging or onboarding new team members, while others vehemently argued that descriptive names become obsolete as software scope changes, making arbitrary names better long-term identifiers.

Pro-Clarity: One user stated, "Name your library after what it does. Use compound terms. Embrace verbosity if necessary. http-request-validator is infinitely superior to “zephyr” when someone is scanning dependencies at 2 AM debugging a production incident," according to user "chagaif".
Pro-Arbitrary/Unique: Conversely, user "marifjeren" argued for unique names because the "purpose will change," noting, "Your 'silicon-valley-bank-integrator' tool will eventually need to be updated to do something else." User "Spivak" concurred, stating they use "random words devoid of all connection to software because you don't want to confuse people later when the scope grows or changes."

2. The Dual Role of Names: Identity vs. Description (Especially for Infrastructure)

A core tension is whether a name's primary job is to serve as a unique, stable identifier (an ID) or to communicate current functionality.

User "dietr1ch" argued for names as stable IDs: "Project names should be unique enough to allow them becoming their Id... Having an Id is really important, making that Id related to the project's original intention is nice, but secondary."
In contrast, user "lr0" stressed the mnemonic value of functional names: "Good luck remembering what 'fluffnutz' does in 6 months," referencing "PostgreSQL" (which is more descriptive than just "Postgres") as an example of a name that reinforces knowledge.

3. The Precedent for Non-Descriptive Names Across Technical Fields

A significant portion of the discussion focused on countering the original article's implied claim that whimsically named software is unique to computer science, citing numerous examples from other scientific and technical domains.

When confronted with the idea that non-descriptive names are "career suicide in virtually any other technical field," user "jameshart" was disputed by many.
User "TehCorwiz" pointed out scientific examples, including the "Sonic hedgehog protein" and "Boaty McBoatface," indicating that novelty and humor are common in nomenclature across science. User "moregrist" added examples from chemistry like "SHAKE and RATTLE" algorithms and physical concepts like "Charm Quarks" and "snap, crackle, and pop" (derivatives of position) to illustrate this widespread tendency.

🚀 Project Ideas

The Hacker News discussion revolves heavily around the philosophy and practice of naming software projects, tools, and libraries.

Key Pain Points, Frustrations, and Unmet Needs:

Cognitive Load of Obscure/Cute Names (The "Tax"): Many users express frustration that whimsical, mythological, or arbitrary names (like "Pegasus," "Wimsey," "Boaty McBoatface") impose a cognitive tax on anyone new encountering the tool or while debugging in production, requiring constant lookups until memorized.
- Quote focus: "Every person who encounters your 'fun' name pays a small tax. Across the industry, these taxes compound into significant waste." and "Good luck remembering what 'fluffnutz' does in 6 months."
Descriptive Names Become Obsolete/Misleading Due to Scope Creep: Conversely, users note that hyper-descriptive names (e.g., "login-page-config-service") break when the scope inevitably expands, leading to awkward migration or misleading descriptions later. This creates a "renaming is hard" problem.
Searchability and Discoverability Issues: Names lacking common technical roots (like "voluptuous," "poop," or random proper nouns) make them terrible for searching online or even within documentation, often leading to NSFW results or unrelated domains.
- Quote focus: Users mentioned getting "full screen of poon" (for "viki") or describing the issue with "Go" becoming "golang" for searchability.
The Trade-off between Brevity (CLI) and Descriptiveness (Libraries): There is a tension between short, easy-to-type names suitable for CLI tools (grep, but which are inscrutable without context) and long, descriptive library names (http-request-validator, which are great for dependency scanning but painful to type/say).

Based on these insights, here are three project ideas:

Scoped Search Indexer/Visualizer for Internal Tooling ($InternalNamingTax) — Cataloging the Unknowns

This service addresses the cognitive tax incurred by teams using a mix of descriptive, generic, and whimsical internal tool names by creating a centralized, searchable knowledge graph for all known software assets.

🔍 What it does - Mandatory Metadata Ingestion: Integrates with Git repos, CI/CD logs, and internal package registries to automatically pull component names (e.g., Pegasus, EmailServ, Project Magenta Lobster). - Contextual Mapping: Allows maintainers to map arbitrary names to functional descriptions, owners, primary purpose, and even link to the "marketing-friendly" name if one exists (e.g., BGL-500 $\rightarrow$ "Storage Caching Layer"). - "Why This Name?" Annotations: Provides a centralized field for the reason a name was chosen (e.g., "Named after the 1980s concept car," or "Contraction of 'Global Regex Print'"), satisfying curiosity and aiding retention.

Why HN commenters would love it - Directly Solves the "Cognitive Tax": It automates the lookup process that users are otherwise constantly performing, reducing the friction of onboarding and debugging in complex corporate environments ("Project Fuzzy Mustard triggered a violation..."). - Handles Scope Creep Artifacts: It preserves the history of why a tool was named what it was, even if its function has since expanded beyond its original name (EmailServ that is now a general queueing service). - Centralized Knowledge: Appeals to the desire for systematic organization, reducing reliance on tribal knowledge ("you have to look it up every single time until you memorize an arbitrary mapping").

The "Descriptive Abbreviator" (Prefix/Suffix Generator) — Descriptive, but Compact

This tool tackles the issue where descriptive names sound too long (http-request-validator) but arbitrary names are forgotten, by enforcing domain-specific, structured naming conventions that prioritize function while maximizing brevity.

🔍 What it does - Domain Context Input: User inputs the required function (e.g., "validate HTTP requests") and the domain (e.g., "API Client"). - Constraint Solver: It applies internal rules (AI or manual heuristics) to generate names that satisfy constraints like "Max 12 chars," "Must start with a verb/domain identifier," or "Must end in a common suffix like -lib, -svc, -cli." - Collision Checker: Checks proposed names against a public/internal registry to ensure uniqueness (addressing the "If you have 50 LLM stream clients, which particular one do you use?" problem).

Why HN commenters would love it - Offers the "Best of Both Worlds": It provides the clarity of functional naming without the verbosity that irritates CLI users or those dealing with long dependency chains (e.g., creating ReqVal instead of http-request-validator). - Systematizes Good Naming: It formalizes the successful patterns observed in the thread (e.g., Postgres $\rightarrow$ Post-Ingres-SQL logic, using suffixes like SSL). - Reduces Arbitrary Choice: It creates a consistent naming ecosystem, preventing the proliferation of names that are "too cute" or embarrassing (poop vs. PerfOpt).

Example Output: User inputs: "This is a Python library for authenticating JSON Web Tokens." Tool outputs several options based on configured rules: 1. PyJwkAuth (Verbose rule set) 2. Jtsvc (Short, domain-prefixed) 3. AuthSalt (If context allows for a clever nod to crypto naming, flagged as "Whimsical/Advanced")

Contextual Name Resolver for Cross-Domain Jargon — Decoding Technical Acronyms and Legacy Terms

This service focuses on the subset of naming problems where jargon, acronyms, or legacy terms are shared across different technical domains, leading to severe confusion (e.g., RDF meaning in Python vs. RDF meaning in Semantic Web).

🔍 What it does - Field-Aware Lookup: When a user queries a term (like "RDF," "Grep," "Spanner," or "eMac"), the system requires the user to specify a domain context (e.g., "RDF in the context of data formats" or "RDF in the context of Apple hardware"). - Nomenclature Resolver: Stores curated historical definitions and primary contemporary uses for technical terms that exhibit high ambiguity across CS/Engineering fields. - Origin Tracing: For acronyms like sed or grep, it visualizes the expansion and the legacy context (e.g., explaining that sed derives from ed), addressing the pain point that even if they know the expansion, they don't know its true history.

Why HN commenters would love it - Resolving Ambiguity: Directly solves the problem where a single string ID means different, critical things across teams or domains (e.g., the mention of RDF in the discussion causing different results). - Historical Context for Power Users: Satisfies the deep technical curiosity of the HN demographic by linking modern tools back to their 70s/80s origins (grep being an ed command), which aids in deep understanding and retention. - Treats Technical Jargon Seriously: Unlike the previous ideas which focus on new names, this one helps users parse the baggage of existing, established, but context-dependent terminology.