Re: promoting Lua

[Gavin Wraith <gavin@...>]

In message <b9ec64b80910291300g1ebc3314p14d9ff7ffd9d4f2e@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Gavin Wraith <gavin@wra1th.plus.com> wrote:
> > In message <4AE9DEF4.3040706@spellingbeewinnars.org> you wrote:
> >
> >> > When I was learning PHP, Python and now C/C++, one of the first things I
> >> > did/do was search for Python sucks, PHP sucks etc.
> >>
> >> I fear I haven't seen the interest. Can you expand a bit?
> >
> > Does the usage "xxx sucks", which I presume was coined in the USA,
> > mean "I like xxx" or "I do not like xxx"?
>
> I don't know where it was coined, but in American English it
> essentially means you consider something to be bad. It originally had
> a sexual connotation which I think is mostly forgotten now, though
> it's a phrase which more careful speakers still won't use in polite
> company.

Thank you. The reason I jerked the reins on this thread was to point
out that Lua, now being a programming language of international
repute, deserves a pinch of circumspection in the naming of URLs and
suchlike. You probably know the story of Rolls Royce calling its cars
Silver Ghost, Silver Wraith, Silver Mist ... The distributors in Germany
soon pulled the plug on the last one, as "mist" means "manure", I think.
Of course almost any word may have unfortunate connotations in some
language. A cavalier, even abusive, approach to naming is adopted by
marketroids for whom infantilizing their public is seen as good
selling-strategy. To name is to control.

Lua has a good name, with propitious connotations in many languages,
and a beautiful logo. That is important.

-- 
Gavin Wraith (gavin@wra1th.plus.com)
Home page: http://www.wra1th.plus.com/