Hmmm, thread about something as squishing and infinitely debatable as a name. What could go wrong? But before you get excited I've already picked one, this is just to sanity check with the community that I'm not making a stupid mistake... again.
Five years ago when I started arm [1] I had the following criteria for picking its name...
1. It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
2. It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
3. No naming conflict with other technical things. Body parts though are fair game though.
Clearly the name failed at #3. When I picked it the ARM processor was just barely becoming a thing, but time marched on and now every irc discussion goes...
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try arm! new_person: The processor? I'm so confused now. somebody: Nope, something completely different. It's a confusing name.
I'm rewriting the whole bloody codebase so why not fix this along the way?
So without further ado the name I've picked is 'Seth'. It's easy to type (#1), memorable (#2), and from what I can tell no SETH processors are on the horizon. I've reserved the name on PyPI, and searchs on wikipedia looks fine (most interesting match is the Egyptian god [2], which is actually kinda neat).
So now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community. Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet so still open to alternatives.
Cheers! -Damian
[1] https://www.atagar.com/arm/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_%28mythology%29
Does it backronym to anything? Can it? ;)
-tom On Mar 10, 2015 11:45 AM, "Damian Johnson" atagar@torproject.org wrote:
Hmmm, thread about something as squishing and infinitely debatable as a name. What could go wrong? But before you get excited I've already picked one, this is just to sanity check with the community that I'm not making a stupid mistake... again.
Five years ago when I started arm [1] I had the following criteria for picking its name...
- It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything
lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
No naming conflict with other technical things. Body parts though
are fair game though.
Clearly the name failed at #3. When I picked it the ARM processor was just barely becoming a thing, but time marched on and now every irc discussion goes...
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try arm! new_person: The processor? I'm so confused now. somebody: Nope, something completely different. It's a confusing name.
I'm rewriting the whole bloody codebase so why not fix this along the way?
So without further ado the name I've picked is 'Seth'. It's easy to type (#1), memorable (#2), and from what I can tell no SETH processors are on the horizon. I've reserved the name on PyPI, and searchs on wikipedia looks fine (most interesting match is the Egyptian god [2], which is actually kinda neat).
So now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community. Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet so still open to alternatives.
Cheers! -Damian
[1] https://www.atagar.com/arm/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_%28mythology%29 _______________________________________________ tor-dev mailing list tor-dev@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-dev
On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 03:03:48PM -0700, Damian Johnson wrote:
Does it backronym to anything? Can it? ;)
Roger's been attempting to come up with a decent backronym all day. Can't say I care, but if somebody comes up with a really good one then happy to adopt it.
safely explain tor's health securely express tor's happiness show everything tor has
Needs more work. Definitely not a good use of this thread on this fine mailing list. :) The IRC channel is a much better place.
--Roger
I love short 2-3 letters commands, they feel super UNIX-y and arm was one of them. Some alternatives:
trm - Tor Relay Monitor Can't find any notable clash in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRM Clash if read as "trim"
tm - Tor Monitor Maybe clashing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TM#Electronics_and_media
Not that seth is MUCH longer then arm anyway :-P
Cheers, Marco
----- Original Message ----- From: "Damian Johnson" atagar@torproject.org To: tor-dev@lists.torproject.org Sent: Tuesday, 10 March, 2015 4:45:19 PM Subject: [tor-dev] Renaming arm
Hmmm, thread about something as squishing and infinitely debatable as a name. What could go wrong? But before you get excited I've already picked one, this is just to sanity check with the community that I'm not making a stupid mistake... again.
Five years ago when I started arm [1] I had the following criteria for picking its name...
1. It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
2. It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
3. No naming conflict with other technical things. Body parts though are fair game though.
Clearly the name failed at #3. When I picked it the ARM processor was just barely becoming a thing, but time marched on and now every irc discussion goes...
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try arm! new_person: The processor? I'm so confused now. somebody: Nope, something completely different. It's a confusing name.
I'm rewriting the whole bloody codebase so why not fix this along the way?
So without further ado the name I've picked is 'Seth'. It's easy to type (#1), memorable (#2), and from what I can tell no SETH processors are on the horizon. I've reserved the name on PyPI, and searchs on wikipedia looks fine (most interesting match is the Egyptian god [2], which is actually kinda neat).
So now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community. Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet so still open to alternatives.
Cheers! -Damian
[1] https://www.atagar.com/arm/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_%28mythology%29 _______________________________________________ tor-dev mailing list tor-dev@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-dev
On Mar 12, 2015 8:26 PM, sid77@slackware.it wrote:
I love short 2-3 letters commands, they feel super UNIX-y and arm was one
of them.
Some alternatives:
trm - Tor Relay Monitor Can't find any notable clash in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRM Clash if read as "trim"
tm - Tor Monitor Maybe clashing in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TM#Electronics_and_media
Not that seth is MUCH longer then arm anyway :-P
By turning those into "Tor [relay] info monitor" you could insert a vowel and get "tim" or "trim". Or replace info with "activities" or "operations" or "event" or "utility" if you would prefer tam, tram, tom, trom, tem, trem, tum, or trum.
Damian Johnson:
Hmmm, thread about something as squishing and infinitely debatable as a name. What could go wrong? But before you get excited I've already picked one, this is just to sanity check with the community that I'm not making a stupid mistake... again.
Five years ago when I started arm [1] I had the following criteria for picking its name...
- It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything
lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
No naming conflict with other technical things. Body parts though
are fair game though.
Clearly the name failed at #3. When I picked it the ARM processor was just barely becoming a thing, but time marched on and now every irc discussion goes...
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try arm! new_person: The processor? I'm so confused now. somebody: Nope, something completely different. It's a confusing name.
I'm rewriting the whole bloody codebase so why not fix this along the way?
So without further ado the name I've picked is 'Seth'. It's easy to type (#1), memorable (#2), and from what I can tell no SETH processors are on the horizon. I've reserved the name on PyPI, and searchs on wikipedia looks fine (most interesting match is the Egyptian god [2], which is actually kinda neat).
Not to be a downer, but I'm not sure a common name like Seth really solves the problem here. I can already foresee:
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try Seth! new_person: The EFF technologist who posts on tor-talk? new_person: Does he help with relay admin stuff, too? somebody: Nope, it's something completely different. It's a confusing name.
Conversational confusion aside, one of my pet peeves is being unable to search the web for a piece of software by name only and find it on the first page. A program named "Seth" is likely going to be as difficult to find as "arm" was/is.
so now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community. Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet so still open to alternatives.
Here's some random tips for picking a memorable brand/business name that might help. I've sorted these roughly in order of how applicable they seem to be to software (most relevant urls first), and included some comments below each URL:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223401 - "Seth" violates tip #2, #5, and probably #7 here.
http://grasshopper.com/blog/playin-the-name-game-9-savvy-tips-for-naming-you... - "Seth" violates tip #1, #2, #5 directly, and some others indirectly.
http://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2013/may/17/11-tips-for-creating-great... - These tips are more about a brainstorming process, but it seems clear to me that "Seth" wouldn't arise from this type of process. That probably is another warning sign.
Not to be a downer, but I'm not sure a common name like Seth really solves the problem here. I can already foresee:
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try Seth! new_person: The EFF technologist who posts on tor-talk? new_person: Does he help with relay admin stuff, too? somebody: Nope, it's something completely different. It's a confusing name.
Thanks Mike! Actually, when Roger reminded me of Seth Schoen that's the one thing so far that did give me pause. I doubt this would honestly cause confusion but that aside, I should check with him. I'd find it unpleasant if a popular project in this community was named 'Damian'. If he feels likewise I should pick another name.
Hope not though. I really like this one. :(
Conversational confusion aside, one of my pet peeves is being unable to search the web for a piece of software by name only and find it on the first page. A program named "Seth" is likely going to be as difficult to find as "arm" was/is.
Hmm. Just about every name we have that doesn't include 'Tor' in it unfortunately fails this test. Tails, Stem... even Vidalia struggles a bit through it manages to beat out the cooking recipes for the #1 and #2 spot.
so now just a final sanity check with you, our wonderful community. Any strong reasons to pick something else? Nothing is set in stone yet so still open to alternatives.
Here's some random tips for picking a memorable brand/business name that might help. I've sorted these roughly in order of how applicable they seem to be to software (most relevant urls first), and included some comments below each URL:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223401
- "Seth" violates tip #2, #5, and probably #7 here.
Those are really good tips. Originally I was thinking of Tormoni (which actually *was* arm's name for a brief time before I was asked to change it), but it's both too long and Roger would still prefer if we pick a name without 'tor'.
Pity. Otherwise it actually fits those really well (meaningful, sounds good aloud, etc).
Cheers! -Damian
Not to be a downer, but I'm not sure a common name like Seth really solves the problem here. I can already foresee:
new_person: New relay operator here, any tips? somebody: Hey, try Seth! new_person: The EFF technologist who posts on tor-talk? new_person: Does he help with relay admin stuff, too? somebody: Nope, it's something completely different. It's a confusing name.
Thanks Mike! Actually, when Roger reminded me of Seth Schoen that's the one thing so far that did give me pause. I doubt this would honestly cause confusion but that aside, I should check with him. I'd find it unpleasant if a popular project in this community was named 'Damian'. If he feels likewise I should pick another name.
Hope not though. I really like this one. :(
Spoke with Seth Schoen and he's fine with it, though suggests usually opting for lowercase (which makes sense anyway, it's a commandline script like top and lsof after all!).
Response on this thread though makes me nervous. Personally I really like the name. Like Stem (... which I think was a great library name) it's short, memorable, and sounds neat. Personally I don't associate seth much with a person's name. Besides Seth Schoen and a particularly neat Crusnik in Trinity Blood I've never heard the name before.
Mike's comment that it was a common name caught me off guard so looked it up. Seems 'Seth' is the 643rd most popular name [1], used by 77 thousand of 318 million residents of the US (0.02%). Indeed honestly higher than I thought, but not distressingly so.
Are there truly any sizeable concerns with this name or can I move forward? I like it, but don't want to opt for something generally disliked by the community.
And on a side note, damn naming things is hard...
Cheers! -Damian
On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 00:00:36 +0000, Damian Johnson wrote: ...
And on a side note, damn naming things is hard...
Indeed. You mostly need invented names to avoid the google trap, like git didn't, and thalys did.
'sethor' came to mind, and it contains 'tor' in a non-roger-invoking way. :-) (But apparently it's also a name.)
Andreas
Hi everyone,
"Argos: the name of the 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology."
It fits, if my opinion were to be welcome. And it doesn't clash with the "Argus" programming language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_Panoptes
Lluís
Andreas Krey:
On Fri, 13 Mar 2015 00:00:36 +0000, Damian Johnson wrote: ...
And on a side note, damn naming things is hard...
Indeed. You mostly need invented names to avoid the google trap, like git didn't, and thalys did.
'sethor' came to mind, and it contains 'tor' in a non-roger-invoking way. :-) (But apparently it's also a name.)
Andreas
Hi everyone,
"Argos: the name of the 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology."
It fits, if my opinion were to be welcome. And it doesn't clash with the "Argus" programming language.
Hi Lluís. Last night I sunk a couple hours into looking for alternative names and Argos (or Argus) came up a few times, but either spelling has quite a number of potential conflicts...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_%28disambiguation%29
I definitely agree it's fitting, but considering how heavily they're both used I'm wary of using it for the name.
That said, I very much like that you're thinking along those lines. Mythology is a great source of names. Couple I'd love to use for future projects are Morrigan and Caer Sidi, but both are too long for a cli command. Personally this is a large part of why I like seth. Besides being short and neat sounding I mostly associate it with the Egyptian god.
Cheers! -Damian
Response on this thread though makes me nervous. Personally I really like the name...
Gave it some more thought over the last couple days and think I'll move forward with it.
Name confusion is something I've seen a lot in the last five years, but honestly I also think arm was simply a poor name. It came from grepping /usr/share/dict/american-english for three character words, then getting tired before I got through 'a'. I've never liked it and considering it's been almost three years since the last release this seems like a fine time to pick something better.
Seth not only avoids name conflicts [1], but is a name I like a lot better and also happens to be the Egyptian god of chaos (https://pp.vk.me/c622816/v622816251/1b371/8sADlDF4ZGI.jpg). This gives me a lot more to work with for a new site.
There is no reason to be hasty with this so I'm gonna wait another week to see if any better ideas come up. Ideas welcome!
Cheers! -Damian
[1] I've checked this on...
* PyPI - Name was open, 'tis mine now. * Google - Searches for 'seth tor' shouldn't be any issue. Just a Facebook account and the like. * GitHub - Not much. There was a ruby project that gave me pause, but it's been over a year since its last commit and its irc channel had just one person. * Wikipedia - Just a few matches with people and the Egyptian god, nothing even remotely technology related. * Irc - Not spotting much. There was a nick once with that question but that's about it.
Gave it some more thought over the last couple days and think I'll move forward with it.
Hi all. I apologize for making more noise on this front but I couldn't shake the feeling that I'm making a mistake. While I like the name 'seth' Mike was right, most people I ran it by associate it with a person.
Did some searching this morning and found another I like almost just as well, and might be more fitting: Erebus.
In greek mythology Erebus is a primordial deity and personification of shadow [1]. I also considered Nyx, who's the goddess of the night but conflicts with *nyx (shorthand for the unix family of OS). Also it's the name of a Dota 2 hero that's killed me way too many times while I warded...
Erebus is a tad longer than I was hoping for, but not terrible. I'm not spotting much in terms of conflicts on Wikipedia, GitHub, or search results and the name's available on PyPI.
Thoughts?
Cheers! -Damian
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
On Fri, 27 Mar 2015 09:51:56 -0700 Damian Johnson atagar@torproject.org wrote:
In greek mythology Erebus is a primordial deity and personification of shadow [1].
i may not be very qualified to name projects (and this is my first contribution to arm), but i feel that if we associate Tor along the lines of shadow and darkness it does not enhance the increased transparency and open culture part of Tor, but rather the "illegal and untamed part of the Internet". i'm sure you all know this is not the case, but to a prospective relay operator it may seem "shady".
along the lines of Greek mythology, Hemera is a primordial deity and the personification of day [0] and the goddess of daytime. i believe that a more open, clear symbol as the name for the naming of a Tor relay monitor may be more fitting (transparency, open cultu
as with the case of the name Erebus, Hemera seems to be available on the python package index [1] and github has no major conflicts [2]. also, feminism!
anyways, any thoughts on this suggestion too? just throwing this out there. thanks Damian!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemera [1] https://pypi.python.org/pypi/hemera [2] https://github.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=hemera
syndikal
A9FF 2FE3 A171 FE53 AEC3 A0F9 72B5 44E0 4417 11B2
Thanks syndikal. I can't say I'm overly concerned about the shadow connotation. In fact, as an anonymity tool I think it's delightfully fitting. There's nothing inherently negative about shadows or secrecy. Privacy is indeed what we're all about, after all.
Cheers! -Damian
Did some searching this morning and found another I like almost just as well, and might be more fitting: Erebus.
Actually, I'm warming up to Nyx too, which has the advantage of being shorter. Surprisingly it too doesn't have much in terms of conflicts (mostly just cosmetics and gaming).
Both Nyx and Erebus might make really good names. Curious to hear how the community feels about these.
Cheers! -Damian
On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 06:47:19PM -0700, Damian Johnson wrote:
Did some searching this morning and found another I like almost just as well, and might be more fitting: Erebus.
Actually, I'm warming up to Nyx too, which has the advantage of being shorter. Surprisingly it too doesn't have much in terms of conflicts (mostly just cosmetics and gaming).
Both Nyx and Erebus might make really good names. Curious to hear how the community feels about these.
Nyx sounds fine to me too (as does Erebus). I assume you have considered and determined to not be too significant that many people use *nix (sp?) when they want to refer generically and collectively to various flavors of Unix-like OSes. I'm mentioning it just in case that slipped under the radar, so you are making a conscious decision that you're happy with. In fact I think this is a point in its favor. I don't think the common use of *nix hurts because in print I doubt anyone would use 'Nyx' for what I just described (although check out the usage collision astronomers had for 'Nyx' and 'Nix') , and in verbal conversation it is easy to separate context. (Probably nobody will be talking about the delousing product ;>)
aloha, Paul
Nyx sounds fine to me too (as does Erebus). I assume you have considered and determined to not be too significant that many people use *nix (sp?) when they want to refer generically and collectively to various flavors of Unix-like OSes.
Thanks Paul! Yup, *nix is something I considered (and mentioned on this thread). Agreed that verbally they sound identical, but in writing probably won't cause much confusion. Should be fine.
Cheers! -Damian
Mike Perry mikeperry@torproject.org writes:
Conversational confusion aside, one of my pet peeves is being unable to search the web for a piece of software by name only and find it on the first page.
+1
Also I think to be *completely* modern, you have to make sure the .io domain still exists too, right? ;) FWIW, "seth.io" does not :D
Completely contradicting my +1 above, here are a couple not-very-searchable names I had while looking for "carml"'s name that you're free to grab:
ORCA (Onion-Routing Control Application) AORTA (An Onion-Routing Terminal Application)
On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 4:45 PM, Damian Johnson atagar@torproject.org wrote:
- It needs to be short. This is a terminal command so anything
lengthy is just begging people to alias it down.
Short commands are more likely to cause collisions and sometimes distribution maintainers are forced to rename them (leading to more confusion). CLI lovers tend to create their alias anyways.
- It should be reasonably memorable. Sorry, no 'z62*'.
Since shell completion has been around for decades I find that completing commands like git-*, ssh-*, apt-*, dpkg-* is fast and also help reminding myself of commands that I don't use frequently. E.g. tor-relay-monitor can be easily discovered by tabbing around.
Bye
Hi everyone (Damien specifically),
I know the discussion is [almost?] over, but I couldn't help but share my little thought. Damien, do as you please. :)
Here's my suggestion:
IRIS -> Interactive Relay Information System
Iris is the part of the eye that controls what you see (the amount of light reaching the retina)
Iris is a Greek god, the personification of the rainbow (all of arm's pretty colours), and messenger of the gods (the Tor gods, of course).
I can't help but feel this is the PERFECT fit.
------------------ Also, for fun... Seth (Set) is not a good god. Among other things, he is the god of desert, storms, disorder, and violence. He killed and mutilated his own brother, Osiris, among many things. He's also known as a trickster.
Anywho, I'm not trying to provoke a Greek / Egyptian / Christian discussion about who is the better God... Just throwing it out there.
Kind regards,
Matt Speak Freely
Hi Matt, thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately IRIS has quite a number of conflicts, including multiple software projects...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris#Information_technology
Cheers! -Damian
On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 11:16 AM, Speak Freely when2plus2is5@riseup.net wrote:
Hi everyone (Damien specifically),
I know the discussion is [almost?] over, but I couldn't help but share my little thought. Damien, do as you please. :)
Here's my suggestion:
IRIS -> Interactive Relay Information System
Iris is the part of the eye that controls what you see (the amount of light reaching the retina)
Iris is a Greek god, the personification of the rainbow (all of arm's pretty colours), and messenger of the gods (the Tor gods, of course).
I can't help but feel this is the PERFECT fit.
Also, for fun... Seth (Set) is not a good god. Among other things, he is the god of desert, storms, disorder, and violence. He killed and mutilated his own brother, Osiris, among many things. He's also known as a trickster.
Anywho, I'm not trying to provoke a Greek / Egyptian / Christian discussion about who is the better God... Just throwing it out there.
Kind regards,
Matt Speak Freely
tor-dev mailing list tor-dev@lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-dev
Hey,
Crap, I obviously didn't do enough research on the conflicts... I did a quick search and didn't find anything Linux package specific...
Most of the listings actually refer to things in the past, long dead - Iris Associates - from the 80s, bought out in '94 - SGI IRIS - also from the 80s. Doesn't appear to be around anymore. --> Kudos to them for creating IRIS GL, which became OpenGL. - Iris (software) - wiki deleted. Unknown. - Iris Browser - RIM bought and killed the package. Is dead. - Iris Mote - physical hardware sensor. - "Internet Routing in Space" <-- damn you Cisco. That's awesome.
But I do see your point. You don't want the package to be one of many <enter name here> systems.
Wait a minute... Hey, thanks for writing arm! Whatever you name it, I'll use it.
Kind regards,
Matt Speak Freely
-
Andreas Krey -
Damian Johnson -
Federico Ceratto -
Lluís -
meejah -
Mike Perry -
Nick Mathewson -
Paul Syverson -
Roger Dingledine -
sid77＠slackware.it -
Speak Freely -
syndikal -
Tom Ritter