KDE Programs Naming Convention

[Dotan Cohen]

On 10/01/2008, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca> wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>
> > On 09/01/2008, Norberto Bensa <nbensa at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> And remember: not everyone speaks English... So what should be meanful
> >> to you, it's not to the other 6 billions people out there...
> >
> > I don't speak English either. In fact, we don't even use Latin
> > letters, or even write from left to right! Despite all that, my users
> > _still_ demand meaningful names. I'm not giving you _my_ opinion,
> > because I personally don't care. I'm reporting what is reported to me
> > by many users.
>
> Neatly sidestepping the issue of what your users consider a "meaningful
> name" :-) Which side of this fence are you and your users on? Could you
> give some examples?

I was planning on avoiding further discussion on the subject, but in
the interest of conclusion I'll play.

I personally open programs with ALT-F2. The shorter the name, the
better. K3B is a great, short name that does not repeat a finger in
typing. For me, it's almost perfect.

My users, however, need to know what programs do. The horrible Linux
names (not only KDE/Gnome, and not the K* and G* convention) are a
huge turn off. I understand them. I will start making a list of
specifics and details, that may find themselves in bugzilla.

> imo (and I'm sure there's a well-researched body of knowledge in the
> advertising field to prove or disprove) a good name is readily identified
> with the product, easy to use and easy to remember.  Names like Word and
> Access meet the last two criteria, but fail on the first because they are
> so commonplace.  abcde fails on the second (because it's five syllables
> with no simple way to pronounce) and fails on the third in any language
> where it isn't an acronym (probably all of them that aren't English).  On
> those grounds, many of the KDE names are actually very good.

KDE names have merit (googlability, for instance) however for the
newbie they are a pain. There are workarounds (such as displaying the
description as well as the name) but they come at a price. The wife is
waiting, and I cannot elaborate fully, but I think that you get the
idea.

Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il
א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?