Re: [boost] [Hana] the name

Subject: Re: [boost] [Hana] the name
From: Louis Dionne (ldionne.2_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-06-16 10:48:24

Paul A. Bristow <pbristow <at> hetp.u-net.com> writes:

>
> [...]
>
> >
> > I just needed a short and good looking name that people would easily
> > remember, and Hana came up.
>
> I understand that Louis is in love with the name of his (very nice) baby,
> but I think it is a very bad idea for a Boost library for the simple reason
> that it gives no clue whatever about what it is or does.

I'd rather have a less-descriptive but easy to remember and type short name
than a more descriptive longer name. I'd have taken MPL or Fusion, but they
were both already taken. Also, there is precedent for funky names in Boost:

    Spirit (and Qi, Karma)
    Phoenix
    Proto
    Wave

And the rest of the world seems to be very fond of cute names that do not
necessarily describe the purpose of the library; go look at libraries in Ruby,
JavaScript or basically any other language. Given that I've been working on
the library for more than a year, and that it's getting known as Hana on the
web, in conferences and mailing lists, I think it would be harmful to change
the name, and for a very small benefit.

That would also bring some technical pains, like changing the repository
name (thus breaking a lot of existing links), changing the namespace and
the documentation, and so on. All this for what? A new name which I don't
even want to change. I'm sorry, but the name won't change at this point.
However, feel free to use a namespace alias in your code if you really don't
like typing `hana::`.

Regards,
Louis