New special effects library

[Inge Wallin]

On Tuesday 19 December 2006 15.47, Zack Rusin wrote:
> On Tuesday 19 December 2006 09:18, Thomas Zander wrote:
> > On Tuesday 19 December 2006 14:07, Zack Rusin wrote:
> > > So as an engineer you're attracted to names and you'd join KDE because
> > > libraries have cool names? I'd expect engineers to look at technologies
> > > not through their names but what they do
> >
> > With news sites, blogs, (paper)articles all giving attention to the new
> > stuff, and the general idea that non-boring names tend to stick better in
> > peoples minds.
>
> And how does that apply to libraries at all? Are you saying that you will
> do such aggressive marketing of KDE that everyone on the world will know
> every KDE library name? Or are you saying that developers will come to KDE
> because of a neat name of a library? I just don't believe any of it, even
> for a second. 

Believe it.  Marketing really works, and good and somewhat mystical names do 
help. I kind of like Thomas suggestion SuperNova, just because of this 
reason. It also works in the opposite direction, and naming something 
KBoringLib will make people put off. In particular, it will put off people 
that aren't already eating the K pie every day.

That said, I do also think that the APIs shouldn't expose these brand names, 
but have descriptive names all over.

	-Inge

> They're names that the authors happen to like, don't try to 
> give them deep philosophical meaning. They're not applications, it just
> doesn't work like that.
> If you're a user and you're being bombed with a given name, sure you'll
> give it a try. But if you're a developer - you don't use a library because
> you've been bombed with marketing - you use a library because you have a
> particular need for it and you keep using a library because it fullfills
> your requirements.
>
> > Well, I guess many people choose to look at the hip sounding
> > libraries before the boring libs.
>
> That's another factulation eh? (speculation made to be a fact).
>
> > The question is if people will recall the kde3 FX library (which didn't
> > have too much 'oomph') and disclaim this lib based on that perception.
> >
> > Renaming it to KGraphicsThatGetYouLaid or KSuperNova (be creative!) may
> > help for those case.
>
> You know I really don't find it all too funny. Should I be renaming it
> after committing every fix as well so that people don't associate new
> version with old bugs? (rhetorical)
> Like I said in the beginning, it's my opinion, I just happen to prefer
> libraries that somewhat represent what they do and if they follow some
> scheme across environment even better. Now that's my opinion and you
> quoting me your opinions and speculations really doesn't help me change it
> so just don't do it.
>
> Now having said that, I will most likely license kimagefx under bsd so you
> are free to fork it just to be able to rename it, I just really don't want
> to be a part of this process.
>
> z

-- 
Inge Wallin               | Thus spake the master programmer:               |
                          |      "After three days without programming,     |
inge at lysator.liu.se       |       life becomes meaningless."                |
                          | Geoffrey James: The Tao of Programming.         |