Nomenclature, Geekiness and Ease of Use

[Mark_in_Hollywood]

I bought a Commodore 64 computer, new, in 1984. Since then I have had a Kaypro (CP/M OS), an PC from DOS 3.3 to Win95, 98 and lastly 7. I switched to Ubuntu in 2006 and dropped Win7 last year. What I am saying here is that I have been around computers for a while. As an end user. Word processing, video games, no programming. I know the lingo. DB-25, Serial Port, Parallel Port, dram, cpu, etc.

Yesterday, a cassette player arrived from eBay. It has USB connectivity. It shipped with a small CD of Audacity. I had Audacity already installed on this 'puter. I didn't use the CD version.

I read the cassette instructions: Open Audacity, Select Edit, Open Preferences, Select USB Audio Device, set Channels to (2) Stereo. It worked flawlessly yesterday. Today, same procedure. But now Audacity has no named (nomenclature) USB Audio, like it did yesterday. Now, having selected each and every USB device available, no selection will allow for 2 channel stereo, like yesterday. No software has been changed, no fiddling with settings or configs of Sound. Are you still with me? I'm getting to the point.

The Alsa? (I cannot tell, the Panel Icon Loudspeaker opens but never says what it's using, e.g., Alsa, Pulse, something else?) and under the Input tab, the only device with "stereo" is: iec958-stereo-input. I selected it. Then I went back to Audacity, Edit, Preferencesevices -- Recording - Device: and tried to find iec-958-stereo-input, but had no luck. This seems to me to be a nomenclature issue. Yes, different developers, but for cryin' out loud folks. This is but one example of this problem I have had with Ubuntu since 2006.

This nomenclature issue is little understood and not well addressed anywhere in any OS. For example: Microsoft's useless word: "Explorer". Used for a browser and a file manager. In Linux, GIMP may be useful, but PhotoLinux or PhotoBuntu is more poetic and describes a function. Yes, I would grok the argument that the name is stuck there. Same for GRUB. When I talk to my OS/MAC friends, they always smirk when I have to explain Grand Unified Boot Loader to them.

All the foregoing should be seen as philosophy, please.

[buzzingrobot]

Hmmm.... I had a C64 and a Kaypro, too.

You're right. Names are important. Linux is strewn with dumb names that have nothing to do with their function. Windows and OX X aren't much better.

[cariboo]

To me if many programs have descriptive names that suggest what they do, things would be just a bit more boring.

[lykwydchykyn]

You write a new open-source program. You need to name it.

- It will likely run on all Linux distros, BSD, Windows, OSX, and heaven knows what else (Haiku? FreeDOS? HURD??), so putting "Linux" or "buntu" in the name would be silly.

- Calling it something generic would make it impossible for people to find you via a search engine

- Naming it anything like an existing commercial software could get you into trademark trouble

- Your expertise is in *software development*, not *product marketing*

- You aren't selling this thing, anyhow. So why market it?

Result: Software with weird, arbitrary name.

[Yougo]

i would let everything end with '-inator!' and make the UI involve big red buttons and large levers.

at least GIMP and GRUB are unique and spell out their function, but yeah, geeky is the word.
the fad of naming everything Gsomething or Ksomething, or libsomething was/is also nice. good luck alphabetizing that

'Explorer' is so much more than just a file manager or a browser. it's also your main panel, draws your desktop, connects your peripherals. then again, the things Nautilus did in the old days was quite bizarre (very handy though) too. and Konqueror actually is* a File manager and browser in one. at least 'Explorer' explores things.

most program names contain some pun or hint at what it does though.

when it comes to naming periperals, there is certainly ground to be gained, i agree.
when hooking up my phone, i get a number of different descriptions: 'Nexus 4', 'Phone Device', 'USB Mass Storage Device', 'Audio Device', 'Volume of 16GB', '/dev/sdb', 'Volume [insert garble here]' and it also matters if i'm looking at it as root or not.

*haven't looked at it in a while. could be different now.

[aysiu]

You write a new open-source program. You need to name it.

- It will likely run on all Linux distros, BSD, Windows, OSX, and heaven knows what else (Haiku? FreeDOS? HURD??), so putting "Linux" or "buntu" in the name would be silly.

- Calling it something generic would make it impossible for people to find you via a search engine

- Naming it anything like an existing commercial software could get you into trademark trouble

- Your expertise is in *software development*, not *product marketing*

- You aren't selling this thing, anyhow. So why market it?

Result: Software with weird, arbitrary name.

I guess, except there are a lot of open source programs with great names:

• Firefox
• FileZilla
• Notepad++
• Transmission
• LibreOffice
• Audacity

[Bucky Ball]

I guess, except there are a lot of open source programs with great names:

• Firefox
• FileZilla
• Notepad++
• Transmission
• LibreOffice
• Audacity

Not to forget Luckybackup! Sounds like a toy or a one armed-bandit but is in fact really powerful backup utility and one of the easiest to use I've found so far. Just like the label says!

I love Catfish also, but not sure how that relates to searching for files, but I could be missing the connection there.

[lykwydchykyn]

I guess, except there are a lot of open source programs with great names:

• Firefox
• FileZilla
• Notepad++
• Transmission
• LibreOffice
• Audacity

Yeah, I don't disagree with that; but I guess if someone's wondering why the email client isn't called "UbuntuMail" or why the browser isn't called "LinuxWeb", etc., that'd be why.

Funny thing is, the KDE project makes a mail client and calls it "KMail", and people say that's an awful name because everything is KThis and KThat. I guess you can't please everyone.

[MadmanRB]

I bought a Commodore 64 computer, new, in 1984. Since then I have had a Kaypro (CP/M OS), an PC from DOS 3.3 to Win95, 98 and lastly 7. I switched to Ubuntu in 2006 and dropped Win7 last year. What I am saying here is that I have been around computers for a while. As an end user. Word processing, video games, no programming. I know the lingo. DB-25, Serial Port, Parallel Port, dram, cpu, etc.

Yesterday, a cassette player arrived from eBay. It has USB connectivity. It shipped with a small CD of Audacity. I had Audacity already installed on this 'puter. I didn't use the CD version.

I read the cassette instructions: Open Audacity, Select Edit, Open Preferences, Select USB Audio Device, set Channels to (2) Stereo. It worked flawlessly yesterday. Today, same procedure. But now Audacity has no named (nomenclature) USB Audio, like it did yesterday. Now, having selected each and every USB device available, no selection will allow for 2 channel stereo, like yesterday. No software has been changed, no fiddling with settings or configs of Sound. Are you still with me? I'm getting to the point.

The Alsa? (I cannot tell, the Panel Icon Loudspeaker opens but never says what it's using, e.g., Alsa, Pulse, something else?) and under the Input tab, the only device with "stereo" is: iec958-stereo-input. I selected it. Then I went back to Audacity, Edit, Preferencesevices -- Recording - Device: and tried to find iec-958-stereo-input, but had no luck. This seems to me to be a nomenclature issue. Yes, different developers, but for cryin' out loud folks. This is but one example of this problem I have had with Ubuntu since 2006.

This nomenclature issue is little understood and not well addressed anywhere in any OS. For example: Microsoft's useless word: "Explorer". Used for a browser and a file manager. In Linux, GIMP may be useful, but PhotoLinux or PhotoBuntu is more poetic and describes a function. Yes, I would grok the argument that the name is stuck there. Same for GRUB. When I talk to my OS/MAC friends, they always smirk when I have to explain Grand Unified Boot Loader to them.

All the foregoing should be seen as philosophy, please.

Well gnome is trying to do what you want...
They want to rename nautilus "files"
they want to rename Epiphany as "web"

seems boring and generic.

[Bucky Ball]

Yea. Nautilus should be called 'Enigmatic Newt' and Epiphany 'Winsome Ewok'. For clarity, of course.

There must be a happy medium cos 'files' and 'web' is waaaay too boring. But then, some might like that. Me? I have the imagination to link the name 'Enigmatic Newt' to a file browser, if that's what it's called and used for, just like how I think 'Web Browser' when I think 'Firefox'. As I'm sure anyone that uses Firefox does.

What's Audacity? I wouldn't think of it as anything other than a lightweight, multi-platform audio Swiss army knife, naturally. When referred to in context, naturally. Think about it. Hammer? No, actually a short rod with a weight on the end for bashing things. But we call it 'hammer' and when we think 'hammer' we think of short rod with weight on end for bashing things.

The word hammer, in and of itself, means nothing out of context. Unless perhaps you're a linguist.

(PS: Kubuntu's K in front of everything policy I hate, incidentally. Hate is a strong word. Dislike then. )