From: Alfie Costa (agcosta@gis.net)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 23:17:22 CEST
On 21 Sep 2000, at 9:52, HTom4722@aol.com <mulinux@sunsite.auc.dk> wrote:
> To me, "range" has an implication of continuity (that is, there are no missing
> values), which the script thing does not require (and is one of its
> features.)
> "Range" begs for conflicts of usage with the Python (and other) range
> statements.
Those are good points, hadn't thought any of them either. Though on the bright
side, Python seems to have similar usage for its own 'range'.
> I'd prefer "list" or "que" or "chain"
For me, 'list' will always belong to Vernon D. Buerg's LIST.COM, a great MsDos
shareware program.
<cough!> 'queue'...
'chain'... to chain implies connecting things that are otherwise separate.
I'm not sure that fits.
My serious vote is for 'queue', but would prefer 'vlad'. Does anybody like
'vlad'? It's not obvious what it means, but it is memorable**. Some unix
commands have perfectly descriptive names, but they're so indistinct I forget
what they do. For example, I often confuse 'which', 'type', and 'file'.
(**in American English anyhow. Looking up the title 'count', it seems that it
is 'comes' in Latin, 'conde' in Spanish and Portuguese, 'graf' in German and
Russian, 'hrabia' in Polish, and 'earl' in English. Maybe none of these have
the additional meaning of the verb 'to enumerate', as 'count' does in English.)
All this reminds me of two more arguments in its favor:
1) Computer programming has a tradition of bad English puns, sort of as comic
relief from other vague or pretentious naming conventions. But maybe there are
already too many humorous names.
2) A pun on 'count' is a pun on aristocracy, which is in keeping with the
humanist ideals of something like muLinux.
BTW, International readers may or may not be aware that defanged versions of
Dracula are ubiquitous in American pop-culture. For example, "Count Chocula",
is the name of a pre-sweetened breakfast cereal whose mascot seems to prefer
this sugary cereal to human blood. "The Count", a Jim Henson muppet who teaches
basic counting drills to children on PBS' Sesame Street. "Count Duckula"... a
short lived comic/cartoon that I know little about except that it looked like a
cross between Donald Duck and a vampire. It would be possible to list many
others, but thankfully time does not permit...
Per contra, it might be aggravating to anybody named Vladimir.
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