[gnuastro-devel] [task #14320] Alternatives for program name suffix

[Mohammad Akhlaghi]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14320>

                 Summary: Alternatives for program name suffix
                 Project: GNU Astronomy Utilities
            Submitted by: makhlaghi
            Submitted on: Tue 24 Jan 2017 08:50:20 PM JST
         Should Start On: Tue 24 Jan 2017 12:00:00 AM JST
   Should be Finished on: Tue 24 Jan 2017 12:00:00 AM JST
                Category: All Gnuastro
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Enhancement
                  Status: Postponed
                 Privacy: Public
        Percent Complete: 0%
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                  Effort: 0.00

    _______________________________________________________

Details:

The `ast' prefix to all Gnuastro's programs was defined as one of the great
suggestions by the GNU Evaluation Committee and has remained since then. 

Afterwords, thanks to the great suggestion and very hard work by Mosè in task
#13765 to set a unified naming convention for the library functions, we have
adopted a different prefix style for the libraries: all libraries begin with a
`gal_' prefix, short for "GNU Astronomy Library".

Since adopting `gal_' for the libraries, the general name "Utilities" is taken
to mean both "Programs" and "Libraries". Based on this distinction, I wanted
to see what everyone here thinks about changing the suffix to all programs
from `ast' to `gap-' (for "GNU Astronomy Program(s)"). 

Besides the suffix letters, I also feel a dash can be useful in readability,
for example `gap-crop' (possible future name for the existing `astimgcrop',
also see task #14301) is much more clear than `gapcrop'.

Besides being the name of a multi-national corporation, GAP is also the name
of Groups, Algorithms, Programming <https://www.gap-system.org/gap.html> (a
System for Computational Discrete Algebra), it is an interactive environment
<https://www.gap-system.org/Manuals/doc/tut/chap2.html#X7E1648BF8446FBC2>,
with only the `gap' executable. GIMP also has a GAP
<https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Using_GAP/> utility, but apparently it is only
GUI. So the name is not un-common. But we won't be using it as a pure name, it
is only a prefix. 

So I wanted to put this idea out and see what you guys think? Is the existing
`ast' (without a hyphen/dash) good? Should we just add a hyphen/dash? Do you
have any better suggestions?

It would be great if we can come up with a good decision before the 0.3
release, so please share any thoughts here as a brainstorm ;-)...




    _______________________________________________________

Reply to this item at:

  <http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14320>

_______________________________________________
  Message sent via/by Savannah
  http://savannah.gnu.org/