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[squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

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Michael van der Gulik-2

[squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 3:22 AM, K. K. Subramaniam <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Saturday 01 March 2008 5:34:52 am Craig Latta wrote:
> Let's turn our attention to Squeak 4 now. Let's create a kernel
> with nothing extraneous in it, and a module system we can use to keep
> the organization clear. I think the result will be much easier to learn,
> and far more pleasant to use. Getting there will be difficult, but it
> will be worth it.

If we are going to strip Squeak down and rebuild it, should we consider
picking a new name for the project? The name Squeak has been around for more
than a decade and has strong associations (good or bad) with certain feature
sets and intended uses. A legally clear open source base is a good time to
invent a new platform that can consolidate the lessons learnt from the Squeak
project and build a new system for the next generation - just as Squeak
emerged from Smalltalk-80.

Spoon? Hydra? Athena? Phoenix? Roar :-)?

I've thought about this too. "Squeak" is a name that's hard to take seriously, and I for one would be less inclined to advertise that any product I make is based on "Squeak". However, there's a large investment in the name - URLs, source code, public awareness, etc. The name is unlikely to change.

In my opinion, Squeak should be a minimal image that is used as a base or a template to create other projects that have different names. Squeak could be thought of as an internal development name that only us coders need to be aware of. What is advertised to the outside world are the names of the other projects, with a small note on the bottom of the packaging saying "Made with Squeak".

Mind you, Linux is taken seriously, and they use a fat penguin as a mascot.

Gulik.

--
http://people.squeakfoundation.org/person/mikevdg
http://gulik.pbwiki.com/

Randal L. Schwartz

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

>>>>> "Michael" == Michael van der Gulik <[hidden email]> writes:

Michael> Mind you, Linux is taken seriously, and they use a fat penguin as a
Michael> mascot.

I may have my history wrong, but I think the "taken seriously" didn't
happen until Red Hat stepped in. Maybe that's what we need... some sort
of headgear for the mouse.

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<[hidden email]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

Claus Kick

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
>>>>>>"Michael" == Michael van der Gulik <[hidden email]> writes:
>
>
> Michael> Mind you, Linux is taken seriously, and they use a fat penguin as a
> Michael> mascot.
>
> I may have my history wrong, but I think the "taken seriously" didn't
> happen until Red Hat stepped in. Maybe that's what we need... some sort
> of headgear for the mouse.

How about "Blue Cap" in allusion to the Blue Book? ;)

EstebanLM

[squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

On 2008-03-04 18:45:41 -0200, Claus Kick <[hidden email]> said:

> Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
>>>>>>> "Michael" == Michael van der Gulik <[hidden email]> writes:
>>
>>
>> Michael> Mind you, Linux is taken seriously, and they use a fat penguin as a
>> Michael> mascot.
>>
>> I may have my history wrong, but I think the "taken seriously" didn't
>> happen until Red Hat stepped in. Maybe that's what we need... some sort
>> of headgear for the mouse.
>
> How about "Blue Cap" in allusion to the Blue Book? ;)

I like squeak as a name (but I'm spanish speaker who lives in spanish
speaking places, so... maybe is not the same in english).
But... if for "seriously taken" you mean "seriously taken by
companies"... I think the first thing to face is the look&feel of the
environment (who is being addressed sucessfully with UI Enhancements)

Cheers,
Esteban

garduino

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

I really don't think that the name be the main factor to be taken
seriously or not.

We (the smalltalkers) claim all the time that Smalltalk and objects
are the superb technology to develop any sort of solution, well, we
must prove it....with better tools that make more easy the production
of software, but in the spirit of real object technology, not copying
other "languages".

Just my thought.
gsa.

2008/3/4, Esteban Lorenzano <[hidden email]>:

> On 2008-03-04 18:45:41 -0200, Claus Kick <[hidden email]> said:
>
> > Randal L. Schwartz wrote:
> >>>>>>> "Michael" == Michael van der Gulik <[hidden email]> writes:
> >>
> >>
> >> Michael> Mind you, Linux is taken seriously, and they use a fat penguin as a
> >> Michael> mascot.
> >>
> >> I may have my history wrong, but I think the "taken seriously" didn't
> >> happen until Red Hat stepped in. Maybe that's what we need... some sort
> >> of headgear for the mouse.
> >
> > How about "Blue Cap" in allusion to the Blue Book? ;)
>
>
> I like squeak as a name (but I'm spanish speaker who lives in spanish
> speaking places, so... maybe is not the same in english).
> But... if for "seriously taken" you mean "seriously taken by
> companies"... I think the first thing to face is the look&feel of the
> environment (who is being addressed sucessfully with UI Enhancements)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Esteban
>
>
>
>

timrowledge

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by EstebanLM

How is Squeak notably less serious as a name than
java
ruby
BASIC
Pascal
SNOBOL
lisp
etc?

And why would I have any respect for a business that declines to use a
software system purely on the basis of the name anyway?

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Strange OpCodes: HEM: Hide Evidence of Malfunction

Sebastian Sastre-2

RE: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by EstebanLM

I absolutely agree with Esteban on this. A rename of the main project is like a
huge debt on the Squeak "trademark". Fail just for a little and you get a mess
of confusion among public. Do that and you are responsible for adding more
barriers it already has in the market (for both developers and organizations).

We can work the Squeak as trademark but IMHO we are far for needing to
prioritize deconstruction of the Squeak name.

A *lot* more important is to have well debugged tools and inject a *serius*
ergonomy and usability fator to all the environment. Right now several Squeak
interfaces in default distribution violates lots of principles of interface
design. Improving that will do a lot more for "the goal".

cheers,

Sebastian Sastre

> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] En
> nombre de Esteban Lorenzano
> Enviado el: Martes, 04 de Marzo de 2008 19:23
> Para: [hidden email]
> Asunto: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"
...

>
> I like squeak as a name (but I'm spanish speaker who lives in spanish
> speaking places, so... maybe is not the same in english).
> But... if for "seriously taken" you mean "seriously taken by
> companies"... I think the first thing to face is the look&feel of the
> environment (who is being addressed sucessfully with UI Enhancements)
>
> Cheers,
> Esteban
>
>
>

Ken Causey-3

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by timrowledge

+1

Ken

P.S. How about spending time writing some useful code instead?

On Tue, 2008-03-04 at 16:37 -0800, tim Rowledge wrote:

> How is Squeak notably less serious as a name than
> java
> ruby
> BASIC
> Pascal
> SNOBOL
> lisp
> etc?
>
> And why would I have any respect for a business that declines to use a
> software system purely on the basis of the name anyway?
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Strange OpCodes: HEM: Hide Evidence of Malfunction
>
>
>
>

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dpharris

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by timrowledge

I think we should rename it to:

"The Programming Language formally known as Squeak"

:-)

David

Quoting tim Rowledge <[hidden email]>:

dpharris

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

(as opposed to "formerly known as ..." )

David

Quoting [hidden email]:

> I think we should rename it to:
>
> "The Programming Language formally known as Squeak"
>
> :-)
>
> David
>
>
> Quoting tim Rowledge <[hidden email]>:
>
> > How is Squeak notably less serious as a name than
> > java
> > ruby
> > BASIC
> > Pascal
> > SNOBOL
> > lisp
> > etc?
> >
> > And why would I have any respect for a business that declines to use a
> > software system purely on the basis of the name anyway?
> >
> > tim
> > --
> > tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> > Strange OpCodes: HEM: Hide Evidence of Malfunction
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>

Alan L. Lovejoy

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

On Mar 4, 2008, at 12:24 PM, Michael van der Gulik wrote:

> "Squeak" is a name that's hard to take seriously, and I for one
> would be less inclined to advertise that any product I make is based
> on "Squeak". However, there's a large investment in the name - URLs,
> source code, public awareness, etc. The name is unlikely to change.

Squeak is not the most professional-sounding name that could have been
chosen. One very important purpose of a name is marketing, and the
name "Squeak" doesn't do that very well in a few rather important
markets. Of course, if you're marketing to children (and those who
educate them,) then Squeak is not at all a bad name.

But that's all water under the bridge at this point. Changing the
name only, in the absence of any other substantive changes, would at
best be ignored as a shameless (and not well-motivated) marketing
ploy. At worst, it would be seen as an act of desperation.

Change Squeak so that it deserves a new name. Then the new name will
be perceived as having been earned, and so will serve as an effective
marketing tool to advertise the new, improved "Open Source Smalltalk."

--Alan

Randal L. Schwartz

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by dpharris

>>>>> "dpharris" == dpharris <[hidden email]> writes:

dpharris> I think we should rename it to:
dpharris> "The Programming Language formally known as Squeak"

dpharris> :-)

As long as we could turn the name into some unpronouncable symbol. :)

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<[hidden email]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

David Zmick

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Alan L. Lovejoy

the artist formerly know as prince lol..

I agree with Mr. Rowledge, other programming languages have considerable strange names(see http://microsoft.toddverbeek.com/lang.html), and they are very successfully,
I especially like the name C++ because of the ++ "joke" it has in it.

I personally feel that squeak should stay called squeak!

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 6:52 PM, Alan Lovejoy <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Mar 4, 2008, at 12:24 PM, Michael van der Gulik wrote:

> "Squeak" is a name that's hard to take seriously, and I for one
> would be less inclined to advertise that any product I make is based
> on "Squeak". However, there's a large investment in the name - URLs,
> source code, public awareness, etc. The name is unlikely to change.

Squeak is not the most professional-sounding name that could have been
chosen. One very important purpose of a name is marketing, and the
name "Squeak" doesn't do that very well in a few rather important
markets. Of course, if you're marketing to children (and those who
educate them,) then Squeak is not at all a bad name.

But that's all water under the bridge at this point. Changing the
name only, in the absence of any other substantive changes, would at
best be ignored as a shameless (and not well-motivated) marketing
ploy. At worst, it would be seen as an act of desperation.

Change Squeak so that it deserves a new name. Then the new name will
be perceived as having been earned, and so will serve as an effective
marketing tool to advertise the new, improved "Open Source Smalltalk."

--Alan

--
David Zmick
/dz0004455\
http://dz0004455.googlepages.com

Sean Heber

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Randal L. Schwartz

How about an assignment arrow, but rotated at some odd angle? :-)

l8r
Sean

On Mar 4, 2008, at 7:05 PM, Randal L. Schwartz wrote:

>>>>>> "dpharris" == dpharris <[hidden email]> writes:
>
> dpharris> I think we should rename it to:
> dpharris> "The Programming Language formally known as Squeak"
>
> dpharris> :-)
>
> As long as we could turn the name into some unpronouncable symbol. :)
>
> --
> Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503
> 777 0095
> <[hidden email]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
> See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl
> training!
>

Alan L. Lovejoy

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

JeffreyStraszheim

Re: [squeak-dev] Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Michael van der Gulik-2

The mouse is Cute!

Every time I launch Squeak the mouse makes me happy. I'm doing serious
work with it, and I'm happy while I do so.

Smalltalk is a joy to program in, especially given that I spend my day
job working with that stupid coffee language. Let us celebrate the joy.

Long Live Squeak!

> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 3:22 AM, K. K. Subramaniam <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>
> If we are going to strip Squeak down and rebuild it, should we
> consider
> picking a new name for the project? The name Squeak has been
> around for more
> than a decade and has strong associations (good or bad) with
> certain feature
> sets and intended uses. A legally clear open source base is a good
> time to
> invent a new platform that can consolidate the lessons learnt from
> the Squeak
> project and build a new system for the next generation - just as
> Squeak
> emerged from Smalltalk-80.
>
> Spoon? Hydra? Athena? Phoenix? Roar :-)?
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.21.4/1312 - Release Date: 3/4/2008 9:46 PM
>

--
Jeffrey Straszheim
http://straszheim.50megs.com

timrowledge

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by Sean Heber

On 4-Mar-08, at 5:10 PM, Sean Heber wrote:

How about an assignment arrow, but rotated at some odd angle? :-)

You mean like

↫

Unicode 'LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH LOOP'?

tim

tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim

Any program that runs right is obsolete.

Michael van der Gulik-2

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 3:59 PM, tim Rowledge <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 4-Mar-08, at 5:10 PM, Sean Heber wrote:

How about an assignment arrow, but rotated at some odd angle? :-)
You mean like
↫
Unicode 'LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH LOOP'?

Sounds good. Is http://www.lawl.org free? :-P.

Gulik.

--
http://people.squeakfoundation.org/person/mikevdg
http://gulik.pbwiki.com/

Andreas.Raab

[squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

In reply to this post by timrowledge

tim Rowledge wrote:
> On 4-Mar-08, at 5:10 PM, Sean Heber wrote:
>
>> How about an assignment arrow, but rotated at some odd angle? :-)
> You mean like
> ↫
> Unicode 'LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH LOOP'?

No, no, no. Josh and I just decided that it has already been taken as
the "eventual assign operator" in Croquet. It means that the variable
may or may not be assigned to and you're not supposed to care about
whether it was assigned or not. Best used with combination with unused
temporary variables! ;-)

PS. For other fancy arrows check
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/arrows.html

SCNR,
- Andreas

timrowledge

Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Renaming "Squeak"

On 4-Mar-08, at 7:19 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> tim Rowledge wrote:
>> On 4-Mar-08, at 5:10 PM, Sean Heber wrote:
>>> How about an assignment arrow, but rotated at some odd angle? :-)
>> You mean like
>> ↫
>> Unicode 'LEFTWARDS ARROW WITH LOOP'?
>
> No, no, no. Josh and I just decided that it has already been taken
> as the "eventual assign operator" in Croquet. It means that the
> variable may or may not be assigned to and you're not supposed to
> care about whether it was assigned or not. Best used with
> combination with unused temporary variables! ;-)

Ah, you mean results of those CrossedFingerPromises?

tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
"How many Motie Watchmakers does it take to change a lightbulb?" "One.
Four to change the lightbulb and seventeen to convert the old bulb
into an escape capsule for all the others."

1234