Re: dmd’s new name

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> writes:

> address@hidden (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:
>
>> Walter Bright <address@hidden> skribis:
>>
>>> The D programming language compiler has been called dmd since about
>>> 2000 or so. In order to avoid confusion, may I request that the Gnu
>>> dmd ("Daemons-managing Daemon") change its acronym?
>>
>> For the record, GNU’s dmd has been around since ~2003¹.
>>
>> Changing names is obviously an annoyance, technically and otherwise.
>> We’re not opposed to the idea, but that would take a bit more discussion
>> among developers.
>
> You might remember this discussion from March 2015.
>
>   https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2015-03/msg00176.html
>
> I proposed to Richard Stallman that we change the name to “GNUShepherd”
> and recently got the green light.
>
> Rationale:
>
>   1. A shepherd looks after sheep (or gnus ;-)), and GNUdmd looks after
>      daemons.
>
>   2. “Shepherd” ends with a ‘d’, which makes it a good name for a daemon.
>
>   3. It’s a pun in the same spirit as “GNU Hurd”.
>
>   4. We might even rename ‘deco’ to ‘herd’ because it’s the very command
>      that allows users to herd their daemons.
>
> Hope you like it.  :-)

I do!  I’m happy this issue has been solved.  It’s also nice that
“shepherd” can be pronounced and is not another abbreviation that has to
be spelled out.

~~ Ricardo