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Comment by throwasehasdwi | Hacker News Reader

What a perfect time to rename it to something reasonable

Just about every news item on HN related to cockroachdb has had this comment up at the top. We get it. (I do NOT work for the company.) Some people don't like the name. I'm sure the company has heard it over and over. Yet they haven't changed it.

At some point, these people who constantly protest the name should realize they've been heard and let the discussion focus on something other than their pet peeve that has nothing to do with the underlying tech. Yes, we realize you have a problem with the name. We realized it a dozen news items ago. But since this is HackerNews, you'd think other aspects -- distributed transactions and the approach they took, the fact that this is in Go (!) and the benchmarks on it, the single executable that incorporates the C++ RocksDB embedded leveldb, etc, etc -- would take top billing.

It gives a major insight on how the developers don't take community feedback seriously, or at all.

This is an issue of basic hygiene of marketing. The name is obnoxious.

It is like being a great developer and showing up in a interview looking/ dressed like a homeless person. Yes, we get it, you can be all talented and such, but people will have a visceral response to the lack of basic hygiene and not want to associate with that person.

In this case it is yet another database.

It would be a sad day if creative people were forced to consider every person who may find their work or title objectionable. The Pixar film "Ratatouille" was a wonderful script but some people could not get over the fact that a rat was a chef preparing food. The screenwriters had the option of changing a fairly significant feature of their film to appease these critics or just say that some people won't watch it. I'm glad they chose the latter. If you really need a distributed database that supports transactions and don't evaluate CockroachDB because of the name, I think that's more on you than on them.

Normally I scorn suggestions like this. But I have had times in my life where I had to live with cockroaches and I really do have a visceral response to this worthy product's name. Seriously it's the only reason I haven't tried it myself. Dumb, I know, but there it is.

You're not alone. There are certain words that will evoke an emotional reaction in people, and projects would be wise to avoid them.

Even if an author thinks a name like AIDS.app, murder.js, syphilis.io, represents the nature of the project well, I'd advise him to change it.

Same thing happened with the "Nimrod" programming language. "But it means a great hunter!" No, people hated the name every time it came up and its author eventually renamed it to Nim.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not totally irrational. And your point reminds me of the product named Ayds[1] that was introduced right as the name of an increasingly well-known disease called GRIDS had been re-designated AIDS.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayds

ElegantDB - Named after C. elegans

In reference to radioresistance: While an LD50 has been reported for wild type C. elegans individuals, an upper lethal limit has not been established, rather "nearly all animals were alive with no indication of excess lethality up to 800 Gy, the highest dose... measured."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioresistance

I imagine the name's advantages of being memorable and being a conversation starter must outweigh the negative effects. I think every time there's a story about them here someone complains about the name, yet their company has persisted for two years. Of course, it's hard to test that hypothesis, and the name could very well be hurting them.

I came here to say "I hope with 1.0 we get a respectable name".

Perhaps "Tardigrade" if they wish to continue with the "small thing that will survive"

huh, seems like a fine, memorable name to me.

Agreed. Atrocious name. Same with Mozilla's "Rust". Great language, terrible name.

What's wrong with it?

Are you asking about rust? Not the parent but: Because the term has universally negative connotations:

I don't like equipment that's rusted. I don't like when joints have rusted into position.

I don't like getting rusty at skills.

I don't like rusty pipes or rust getting into drinking water. I don't like turning on a faucet and seeing the color of rust come out.

I know it's not 100% rational, but the feeling of revulsion nudged me away from learning about it until much later.

It also invites easy puns about a system that runs "like it has a lot of rust in it" (already seen it happen).

"Oh, but it's actually this ubergeeky reference to--" I don't care. The lay audience cares even less. The insidious metal oxide is what I think of, double so for the average person.

What does it matter what the average person thinks? Are they making database/language decisions for your product?

You can argue that potential managers might be influenced but it should be easy enough to put the merits of the product before the name itself.

This isn't really a rational discussion. We're complaining about a name.

If your definition of "rational" excludes things with an actual impact on your ability to achieve your goals, then you either need a different definition of "rational", or you need to stop dismissing concerns that aren't rational.

Would you see a problem with [obscenity]DB? Or SyphillisDB? PubesDB?

If so, then you agree the name matters, "and we're just haggling over the details."

Hmm, I've always sort of liked rust. It's pretty. To me it has connotations of aging and transformation, but not something necessarily bad.

Stuff like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Never-Sleeps-Young-Crazy-Horse/dp/B01....

https://www.pinterest.com/tmdesigns56/rust-is-beautiful/?lp=...

It's an interesting question of how much it's worth trading a memorable name for rubbing some people the wrong way.

Rust? I just don't like the sound of it. Completely irrational.

Personally I just struggled to rename a small github library with < 100 stars because I was concerned it might impact some users or cause some confusion. I can't imagine what it's like renaming a much larger project which is also a brand. I mean hell look over at the Jade projec-- woops I mean the Pug project to see some of the logistical concerns of renaming software.

Why don't they just do what porn companies do, create a professional sounding parent company that can interact with various enterprises while leaving the underlying implementations opaque?

Firefox worked out ok and that was a very fast switch.

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