Names Are Important (AKA I've Got New Kicks)
21 NOV
While writing the suckerfish dropdowns article for A List Apart years ago Mr Griffiths taught me a valuable lesson: It’s really bloody important to come up with a catchy memorable name for things (even if they are to do with geekery). Why call something CSS / JavaScript Hybrid dropdowns when you can call them Suckerfish Dropdowns? Ruby Web Framework? No…Ruby on Rails. XMLHttpRequest? Ajax….you get the idea. All of this is really obvious of course but doesn’t seem to be a lot of the time to us programmer types who create something good and want to shove it out to the rest of the world. We tend to just call it something uninspired like Unobtrusive JavaScript plugin (oh, um, er…) or even worse an acronym like UJS (oh, er, arr, hmm….). So, yeah, what I’m saying is that it’s really important to think of good names for libraries, techniques and such. Go on, do it. Do it now. Name your code and name it something memorable (ActiveWhatever is not going to stand out in a crowd is it?). You get the added advantage of it being easily googlable too.
When I first wrote Low Pro I thought quite hard about a name for it. I really didn’t want to call it Unobtrusive Prototype or UP or whatever. After thinking for ages I came across the name completely by accident. I was on Ebay searching for over-priced trainers as is my current fetish and it was staring me in the face: ‘Nike Low Pro SB’....Perfect. Short catchy and strangely appropriate.
But, I suppose, the real point of this post is that I’ve finally got a pair of said trainers and some Heinikens at that. I’m most pleased and I want to show you a picture of them whether you give a shit or not. So, here it is…
IN OTHER NEWS: Low Pro 0.3 is on the verge of release with a whole load of bug fixes and some more work on Behaviour classes which are turning out to be extremely great. More on that soon.
11 Comments (Closed)
Very nice. They look both minty, Italian, and, perhaps most importantly, Christmasy.
Patrick at 22.11.06 / 16PM
I tried to coin the term Applejax (after one of my favourite childhood halfpenny sweets) for the Applets + Ajax stuff we’ve been doing lately! Luckily, I was over-ruled…
Mike Stenhouse at 23.11.06 / 10AM
Christmasy…I didn’t think of that but you’re right. ha.
Mike: You’ve got to love the *jax buzzwords. I’ve got one up my sleeve and ready to unleash. You watch, I’ll be keynoting Ajax 2008 no problem….
Dan at 23.11.06 / 12PM
you want some Hasumi style Nija shoes..huh? huh? am i tempting you?
seriously though. I’ll be back home by New Year and catching up with everyone in Jan… so place your JP orders now…
Love to the Mrs
bryony at 23.11.06 / 14PM
Bryony! Ello, so you’re going to be back soon? Cool. If I keep up these lessons then I might need some tabi socks, weird as they are.
Do you know of Hatsumi then? Is he big in Japan?
Dan at 23.11.06 / 15PM
The closest thing to being a cool name that I’ve came up with is “Sweet Titles” – but I appropriately named the title “JavaScript Fading Tooltips” to get the folks who were actually looking for the like.
Dustin Diaz at 23.11.06 / 19PM
I snagged a pair of Onitsuka Tigers in Sydney last week.
You’re a rockstar over there, Dan! Everyone was talking about when you travelled the world and lived in Melbourne for 6 months.
topfunky at 23.11.06 / 19PM
Man, had a very good time in Melbourne. Wicked web crowd over there…I want to go back. Anyone in Oz want to pay for me to come over again?
Will write JavaScript for flights….
Dan at 23.11.06 / 22PM
Maaan, I’ve been shopping for a new pair for weeks now, but can’t find anything proper. Don’t worry though, I’ve been putting together a sneaker-shopping itinerary for when you’re out here next – we’ll make the rounds.
Nate Koechley at 28.11.06 / 08AM
Excellent! I’ll be sure to bring a huge suitcase with me. Looking forward to that…
Dan at 28.11.06 / 18PM
first time im at this blog. stumbled upon it. but im going to add u to my google reader on the strength that youre a sneakerhead. so that’s that. u have no say in the matter.
heineken dunks. beautiful.
Adrian at 25.12.06 / 02AM
About This Article
Related Linkage 
lowpro
- Taming The Beast Slides for my presentation at @media Ajax 2008. It's mostly about Low Pro Behaviours and how they can be used to architect complex applications.
- Scripteka :: Prototype extensions library A site bringing together lots of Prototype related code.
- jlaine.net - From Rails Helpers To Low Pro part 2 More in the excellent series about progressive enhancement in Rails. This time Jarkko gets into a real example.
- Unobtrusive AJAX with Rails, Dan Webb - Google Video A video of my presentation from RailsConf Europe last year. Theres about 5 minutes of me standing around at the start. Brilliant.
naming
nike
- Nike iD Bespoke at 21 Mercer Oh shit. That's just fucking incredibly good. Far beyond Nike ID, you can create you're own AF-1s from a huge selection of materials. I need to go to New York right now.
- NIKEiD Studio in London This could be incredibly cool. Need to check it out at the weekend. I hope they offer more than the online NikeID site...I want custom AF1s.
- Sample Nike Air Zoom Infitrator White/Green Nice!
- NEW DUNK SB SAMPLES BLACK/GREEN/WHITE COLORWAY New dunks out in Europe this summer. Must purchase!
- Nike Air Force 1 Sneak Peek I'm really liking those orange Air Force 1's.
