[Zope] The name ZOPE (was RE: [Zope] Linux.com community ad)

[Alexander Staubo]

The name is easier to distinguish for Americans, I think, who pronounce
the letter "Z" differently from the character "S". I'm pretty sure Brits
don't do this, but I could be wrong. Nevertheless, the verbal
resemblance between "Zope" and "soap" is still pretty high.

I once spoke with an American about a particular zoological garden and
somewhat into my discourse he stopped me to ask what the heck I was
talking about and who this "Sue" was. Same thing recently with Zope, and
this American wondered, incredulously, how we could develop anything
with soap. I've since seen the errors of my ways and I hand out Zs less
casually these days.

Zope isn't a great name, but great names in the computing business is
the exception, not the rule. Names are but placeholders for our
associative memory: Delphi, Photoshop, Visual C++, Linux, GNOME, KDE,
Cold Fusion -- they're all pretty inane. Few describe the product; some
(Visual C++) are just plain wrong. One my favourite product names is
Maya (the high-end 3D modeling tool from Alias|Wavefront), which has
connotations to ancient architecture and the building craft. Such names
are few and far between.

Extraordinarily few names truly convey anything by themselves. For
example, Photoshop, to me, conveys professionalism, stability, speed,
and so on -- but that's because these are qualities of the product, not
the name. If the opposite were true, all product names would be things
like ProfessionalStableFastImageEditingProgram. The poorest names in the
business are those which strive that kind of descriptive verbosity (be
on the lookout for words such as "super" or "ultra" or "plus").
Ultimately any name may be redefined. I wouldn't matter an iota to me if
Photoshop were called Dung. Companies would still buy it based on its
quality. Nobody buys a product based on its name alone, especially not
relatively unknown products.

As others have pointed out, "Zope" lends itself to the unsearchable mess
we call the world wide web. That's good. It's short, syntactically
unique in the English language, easily pronouncable, and so on. That's
good, too. Personally I'd be even happier if DC would forgo the
acronymic baggage. "Zope" is silly enough by itself; it doesn't have to
be shorthand for "Z Object Publishing Environment", too. Having to
"explain" it only serves to dampen its effect.

So while we likely all agree that Zope isn't brilliant or even that
good, it doesn't really matter. And I'll have a Zope-on-a-Rope to go,
please.

-- 
Alexander Staubo             http://www.mop.no/~alex/
"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the
Wright brothers.  But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
--Carl Sagan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jay, Dylan [mailto:djay@lucent.com]
> Sent: 15. oktober 1999 03:26
> To: 'Rafael Cordones Marcos'; Brian Lloyd
> Cc: Users of the Z Object Publishing Environment
> Subject: [Zope] The name ZOPE (was RE: [Zope] Linux.com community ad)
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Rafael Cordones Marcos [mailto:rcm@bcnartdirecte.com]
> > Sent: Friday, October 15, 1999 04:41
> > To: Brian Lloyd
> > Cc: Users of the Z Object Publishing Environment
> > Subject: Re: [Zope] Linux.com community ad
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, Oct 14, 1999 at 01:42:31PM -0400, Brian Lloyd wrote:
> > > > Michael, you are resourceful enough to make such a 
> > banner, aren't you?
> > > 
> > > Ok, I'll play. How about this one? :^)
> > > 
> > > http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/Misc/got_zope.jpg
> > > 
> > These just came up:
> > 
> > - The web is made for Zopping.
> > - Zope: the web with a Zertain Class.
> > - Zope: work the web with class.
> > - Zope: work the web with classes.
> > - Zope makes the Web go round. (or is it "arround"?)
> > - To Zope or not to Zope... that ain't a question!
> > 
> > NOTE: As English is not my mother tongue, thess phrases 
> might have the
> > wrong
> >       meaning for me. Feel free to modify them! ;)
> 
> I seem to be the one that rains on a lot of parades but I 
> thought this was
> the time to bring up something thats been bothering me for 
> awhile. The name
> ZOPE. In my opinion its not very good. It doesn't convey the  
>  sense of an
> enterprise object oriented web publishing system. It sounds 
> silly. Zope as
> in Soap. Zope on a Rope. People look at me strange when I say 
> I've been
> working with Zope.
> I think Z Object Publishing Environment is fine but thats not 
> a name its a
> description. I personally think it needs a name that suggests 
> the power,
> stability and flexibility that is Zope.
> 
> Am I alone in this thought?
> 
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