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Comment by edflsafoiewq | Hacker News Reader

From what I could tell, Raku appears to be from Rakudo, the Perl 6 compiler, which is a shortened form of rakuda-dou (="way of the camel" in Japanese). Rakudo also means "paradise". The "raku" from "way of the camel" means "camel", while the "raku" from "paradise" means "fun" or "enjoyable" (or "music").

Incidentally, it also happens to sound similar to "roku" (="six").

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There was something strangely familiar about the word "raku" but it took me a moment to make the connection. In Finnish, "raakku" is a common name for the mollusc species Margaritifera margaritifera, better known as the… freshwater pearl mussel! [1] I'm really not sure if this is an amazing coincidence or yet another layer of linguistic brilliance.

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

Oh wow, I didn't know that, but I know that there is/was a band called "Raakku ja helmet". I always thought "Raakku" was a humorous nickname of the singer, because "raakkua" means "to cry like a crow", i.e. not so well. But "raakku" meaning "a mussel" brings a whole new level of meaning: "Mussel and the Pearls".

This is exactly the type of linguistic naming shenanigans I'd expect from the Perl community.

It is also a type of Japanese pottery. "Raku pottery is "imperfect but sophisticated", so that's a fit :)" https://colabti.org/irclogger/irclogger_log/perl6?date=2018-...

That description also fits a camel.

A camel strikes me as unsophisticated yet perfect.

I understand that impression but I think it requires a different point of view. They are highly adapted in multiple quite complex ways. It's possible we're using divergent definitions of "sophisticated". I was using the one that means complex, developed, and refined for an environment rather than the definition of being tasteful, intellectually pleasing, and socially experienced.

That applies to every living thing ever, though. You're not focusing on the camel at all, or elevating it, unlike joshred's formulation.

Not everything that ever lived is as adapted as the camel and not in as many ways. it has huge fat stores so it can go a long time between meals. It can go a long time without even drinking. It has for thick enough it won't sunburn but thin enough it won't overheat easily. They have a third, translucent eyelid that opens to the side like something you might see on a reptile, but they still have the two main lashed eyelids like most mammals. They have a long, strong swatting tail. Their feet, unlike a horse or goat, are not hooved. They have a split foot with webbing in the middle that resists sinking in sand or soft soil. They're able to drink brackish or even salt water. They can eat stone fruits like dates with the stone. They'll eat cactus with the spines because their mouths are so tough. They eat fish, seeds, grains, and all sorts of things. They can eat foods far too salty for other animals and will even eat bones. Arabian camels will travel tens of kilometers a day in the wild to forage, in conditions many animals couldn't even survive, but can go two weeks between meals when they must.

Saying they are no more complex and adapted than any other organism sells them far short. Yet they're more stubborn than a mule, somewhat slower than a horse, they smell worse than either, and they'll spit on a person like a llama. They've been known to bite. Their shape is not is amenable to riding although they are used as mounts. So there are things one might really want to change before spending a lot of time with one.

I'll agree that comparing to any other organism is going too far.

But if we focus on vertebrates, they are all so very very complex and adapted. Everything you've listed for a camel is at best a cherry on top. All other vertebrates are within a couple percent, and many of them have feature lists just as long.

What's surprising is that there is evidence that they originally evolved to deal with the snows of the arctic.

So those feet that are great on sand were made for walking on snow covered ground.

Likewise food is scarce in both the arctic during the winter and in the desert.

If a camel strikes you it is indeed not sophisticated.

So as a Japanese speaker, I don't think I ever would have made the 'raku' == 'rakuda' camel connection.

Also, while 'raku' is the reading for 楽, which connotes easy, simple and other good things, it is also the reading for a bunch of other characters--namely, 落, which means or carries the connotation of falling, declining or otherwise missing the mark.

When I see the 'raku' transliteration in the context of Perl, I think of 落. Not sure if that says something about my subconscious perception of Perl or not, but I can't help but think 'Raku' is a bad choice for the name of a language mired in indecision and falling from public favor.

On another note, I find the inclination of tech projects towards poorly translated Japanese words amusing. It nicely compliments the phenomena you see in the use of random English words for the naming of Japanese cars, condo buildings, and other 'prestigious' products. So if you find that ridiculous, you should find these 'Japanese' technology names ridiculous as well.

Raku isnt falling from public favor, it hasn't made it yet. It's an entirely different language to Perl 5. Like the difference between C and C# or Java.

Yea, sorry I'm not super familiar with the project, but that is the general vibe I get about Perl.

Interestingly enough 落(raku) also has the connotation of failure or missing the target, so not very auspicious in the context of a new language either!

> that is the general vibe I get about Perl.

Perl <=5 did make it, it was quite big in the 90s and early 2000s.

Raku means happy, fun or relaxed: https://jisho.org/word/楽

Rakudo means paradise: https://jisho.org/word/楽土

Rakuda is a camel: https://jisho.org/word/駱駝

And back when we had to read books to learn a language, the definitive guide on Perl was called "the camel book." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_Perl

I'm curious, how do you learn languages now?

I read a blog post with the basics, then Google everything else as I need it.

Interesting. A good book is very efficient at teaching you how to think in that particular language, rather than translating the ideas you have in another language into the new language. How do you learn that with your method? It sounds to me that it would require a long time programming in the new language to come to the same realisations by yourself.

I've been developing software for more than ten years and it is rare now that I encounter anything genuinely new "idea wise" in a programming language.

The main questions I have when doing something in an unfamiliar language are now:

1. What is the syntax for X

2. Can it do Y

3. Is there a library/builtin for Z

For anything else, I've probably been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

I remember using some books to get a structured introduction when I started out many years ago though.

Nowadays I'll probably just open whatever existing code there is, go "ah, so it's like that", and hack away with the help of Google.

The stuff that takes actual learning tend to be major frameworks for me, not so much whatever programming language is used.

This is how to learn to mimic a new language and avoid actually learning it. It’s the difference between carrying around a French phrase book and being able to converse like a native.

Yeah, I don't think that anyone learning Raku that way would realize that the {} in the following is actually a lambda.

    for @a { .say }

So this works in basically the same way:

    my $lambda = { .say }

    @a.map( $lambda );

Or that the pointy block syntax …

    for @a -> $item { say $item }

… works on every keyword of the form `KEYWORD (CONDITION) {BLOCK}`.

    if $a.method() -> $result { say $result }

The pointy block is of course also a lambda.

    my $lambda = -> $result { say $result }

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Raku is a much more consistent language than beginners expect. The above is just one example of this.

Because it is so consistent; once you learn something in one place, you can use that knowledge everywhere in the language.

But first you have to realize that is even a possibility.

It would take a long time to come to that conclusion if you write Raku by copy-pasting code.

That is because very few languages are as strangely consistent as Raku.

I think explains a lot of the polarised reactions people have towards Perl. It's trivial to understand the difference between the scalar var $foo and the array var $foo[0] if someone explains it to you or you read it; but if you're trying to Google-as-you-go, you don't even know what to search for. Those in the former group are more likely to find Perl delightful, while to the latter it's just frustrating.

> It's trivial to understand the difference between the scalar var $foo and the array var $foo[0] if someone explains it to you or you read it;

I don't Perl much, but aren't those both scalars and @foo is an array variable. $foo[0] would be a scalar that is the first element of @foo, right?

Yes, indeed — I should have said "scalar element of the array var..." or something.

> Raku appears to be from Rakudo, the Perl 6 compiler, which is a shortened form of rakuda-dou (="way of the camel" in Japanese). Rakudo also means "paradise". The "raku" from "way of the camel" means "camel", while the "raku" from "paradise" means "fun" or "enjoyable" (or "music").

One of the worst problems for adoption of perl6 has been always overthinking. "Hey, look at my cool name" has never convinced anybody to use a computer language. Too many names.

Raku is a good name indeed. Like a promise of prune and simplify all the former zoo of names that could finally allow the people to focuse in the program

>One of the worst problems for adoption of perl6 has been always overthinking. "Hey, look at my cool name" has never convinced anybody to use a computer language. Too many names.

You're overthinking it. I don't think those who came up with the names did so to, or cared to, convince people to use the language with them...

> I don't think those who came up with the names did so to, or cared to, convince people to use the language with them

Mission acomplished then, if we take a look to the low interest in people to massively adopt the language since it was released in 2015

>Mission accomplished then, if we take a look to the low interest in people to massively adopt the language since it was released in 2015

Yeah, as if the name is what caused the non-adoption of a 20 years late replacement for a language that had already fallen out of fashion with developers (and with many growing pains in the compiler and tooling to boot).

If anything, they used the "Perl 6" for most of the time, which renders the argument even more moot...

Everything counts. And don't make me talk about camelia.

>Everything counts

Not everything counts equally. If something affects the adoption by 1M users, and another is only a concern for 100 weirdos, the second is not exactly a major issue to focus on...

> If something affects the adoption by 1M users, and another is only a concern for 100 weirdos, the second is not exactly a major issue to focus on...

noun: weirdo;

1) a person whose dress or behaviour seems strange or eccentric.

Yep, weirdos will never ever have any influence on Perl development or Perl community.

https://www.ecured.cu/Larry_Wall#/media/File:Imagen_Larry_Wa...

He has long hair now, which is often under a cowboy hat. He of course still wears hawaiian shirts.

I want to know who taught you math.

Because 2015 - 2000 does not equal 20.

The project started in 2000.

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It would have been a much worse language if it had been released even a few months earlier. (That was before the GLR landed.)

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Also just about every time a new feature was added in the first few years the existing features were redesigned so that everything was consistent.

So despite having many features from many languages, it feels like all of those features belonged together.

Because of the time taken back then, it is actually really easy to add new features to the language now. (Try adding first-class regexes to any other existing language.)

For example, all of the normal operators are just subroutines with a special name. Which means you can create a new operator that works exactly like a built-in operator by giving it a similar special name. (From a certain viewpoint, Raku doesn't have built-in operators.)

Also regexes (which have been redesigned to be easier to read) and string literals are actually Domain Specific Languages in Raku. Which means you can also add your own similar feature if you felt so inclined.

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I like to think of it this way:

A language like Python is a good toolbox.

Raku is also like a good toolbox, except it is also a fully decked out machine shop for creating new tools that no one has thought of yet.

Everyone who has worked in a machine shop knows it takes a few years to get one setup just-right.

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Also there is a saying:

It can be good, fast, or cheap. Pick at most two.

Raku was created entirely by volunteers, so by definition it has to be cheap.

Which means there was only ever a choice between fast or good.

I'm glad the choice was to make it good rather than fast.

(Especially since the whole reason to create it was to make something that was more good than Perl was at the time.)

Meanwhile, in hebrew, it means spoiled or decayed. :)

That would be Rakuv רקוב, just Raku doesn't have any meaning in Hebrew. It does sound similar when pronounced though.

(Hebrew word formation is from 3-consonant roots, not concatenation, so removing a letter doesn't give a related word. It's either an invalid word or a different root with 3rd voiceless consonant רקוא which is a not a root / רקוע Raku'a "flattened" but that doesn't sounds quite differently.)

It's a pretty good name I think!

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