
Bad product names confuse me - wkoszek
http://www.barelyusable.com/bad-product-names-confuse-me#.Vd9VJYPTZNY.hackernews
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PhantomGremlin
I've given up on understanding most of these "hip" websites and products. If I
can't quickly figure out exactly what the company does, I just use Wikipedia.
Much simpler.

For example, just a week ago we had a discussion here[1] about an aspect of
Heroku. I didn't know what they did, so I visited their home page.[2] Lots of
buzzwords and pretty little diagrams. But, for me, Wikipedia was so much
better[3]. The first paragraph described it succinctly.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10088596](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10088596)
[2] [https://www.heroku.com/](https://www.heroku.com/) [3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroku](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroku)

~~~
wkoszek
2nd good example in this thread. Funny thing is how they also hyde stuff
behind made up naming: "dynos". But Heroku isn't alone. I started using
OpenShift which has "gears" ...

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neoCrimeLabs
I think the title is misleading, but have to agree with the content.

How many times do you go to some technical project page and have no idea what
the project actually does? Sometimes you get a vague description, sometimes
you get a list of features, or worse you get a changelog for the front page.

If you want people who don't know anything about your tool to use it, first
make sure they know what it is, then give them a reason to use it. Ask
yourself: "What is X? Why would I use X?" If you can't answer that easily on
your project's page, then people who have no idea what your project is may
never know.

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rogerthis
I've always thought Parse to be a very bad name for that product/service.
Fortunately, Google has learnt that parse.com refers to Parse.

~~~
wkoszek
Same here, especially that "parse" in the technical terms is so suggestive.
You enter the website and wonder: what type of compiler/regex technology this
startup is doing.

Instead of e.g.: "Parse is a Backend as a Service. It's for developers who
need backend, but don't want to deal with servers".

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wonkaWonka
Bah! This is an attempted advertisement for Ansible, more than it is article
attempting to be informative.

    
    
      > for developers and sysadmins
    

Sounds pretty clear to me. If you don't know what that is, then it's not for
you.

Thing is, last time I checked Docker is Linux, Linux, Linux, and nothing else.
They don't really make any mention of that. Probably deliberately so, because
they want to keep their reputation clear of any constraints.

I think the same goes for Ansible, but correct me if I'm wrong.

But everybody is in the game of making broad mindless generalizations,
especially when it comes to "cloud" services, because everyone's trying to get
you to pay money for something you'll never be able to put your hands on, or
stand in the same room with.

But seriously, all of these things are mostly about servers in warehouse-like
datacenters a thousand miles away, and no one will ever dare say that, because
it kills the glamour. So whatever.

~~~
neoCrimeLabs
> This is an attempted advertisement for Ansible

Even though the author clearly states he uses Docker?

