The Trouble with Common Names
Have you ever tried to search for Eclipse related info with Google? You'll find your results cluttered with pages about solar eclipses, mobile entertainment systems, a constraint logic programming system (with the crazy capitalization scheme "ECLiPSe"), among other things you've heard of, like Mitsubishi cars.
How about when you google Derby?
You might not have tried to search for that yet, but if you did, you'd have an even tougher time finding what you want. Cluttering your results when you search for "derby" are pages about the horse racing, British hats, and a popular nightspot in Hollywood. At least the Eclipse that we know and love occupies spots #1 and #2 in Google. Derby is not in the top 10. In fact, currently it occupies the #39 spot.
Compare that to JUnit. Search for "junit" and you see pages and pages of nothing but info about how to test your Java programs. Tidbit: Erich Gamma, whom I commented about in an earlier post, is not just a co-author of the seminal patterns book Design Patterns, not only is the head of the JDT, but also co-wrote JUnit. He definitely is a programmer's programmer.
So what TODOs do we have?
TODO: If you're involved in choosing a name for a new project, especially if it is an open source one, try to make the name unique. This will make it easier for people to find information about your project, not just the home page, but articles about it, blogs about it, newsgroup postings about it, etc. The flipside to this is that JUnit doesn't immediately convey anything, but Eclipse gives you the feeling that something is going to be covered up by something else, Derby may indicate a certain coolness, and PowerBook means you're holding a powerful workstation in a small package.
TODO: If you're looking for an open source project that uses common names, try to prefix it with the group that owns it or supply the version number. For example, instead of searching for Derby, search for "Apache Derby" (and use the double quotes while you're at it as that reduces the results from 39,000+ to 1,700+.) By the way, both apache derby and "apache derby" get you the open source project as its #1 and #2 results. Also, instead of searching for Eclipse, search for "Eclipse 3.0" or "Eclipse 3.0.1".
TODO: If you're writing about an open source project, make sure to include the "full name" of the project at least once, if not every time you mention it. That is, prefix the project name with the organization's name. For example, instead of writing Derby by itself, I'll try to write "Apache Derby" from now on. Not sure what to do about Eclipse, since "Eclipse Foundation Eclipse" might seem a little wordy, but perhaps it will catch on.