A Community-Culture Problem With Library Names

[ejmr]

After some thought I decided to post this link:

http://ericjmritz.name/2014/01/27/probl ... ary-names/

My feeling of shamelessly promoting my own blog gave me reason to pause before making this post, because that’s not something I want to do. But it discusses what I believe to be an important problem in LÖVE community. So ultimately it felt worth sharing here to hopefully generate some good, constructive discussion.

[Plu]

I have to wonder if this is a "community problem" as you state, or more of a personal problem. Personally I enjoy the way löve is "terribly unprofessional" because I suffer through enough of the seriousness/bullshit of having a professional language and framework in my professional job.

But maybe that's just me and more people in the community are bothered by these names. I dunno.

[ejmr]

I have to wonder if this is a "community problem" as you state, or more of a personal problem.

It is both. I have a personal problem with how this issue exists in the first place. And I have a personal problem with it in the sense that I have to weigh using LÖVE versus how people will react to me due to it seeming “terribly unprofessional,” as you say below.

Personally I enjoy the way löve is "terribly unprofessional" because I suffer through enough of the seriousness/bullshit of Ahaving a professional language and framework in my professional job.

But maybe that's just me and more people in the community are bothered by these names. I dunno.

I can definitely see your personal POV. To me, though, if LÖVE genuinely wants to be unprofessional then will be dead in the water as a viable option for commercial games in the future (i.e. when we get to 1.0.0).

[Kingdaro]

Despite how it may seem to outsiders, programming really is a humor-prone job / hobby. Honestly, it kind of has to be; you've gotta have fun somehow, otherwise you'll just be a dreadful mindless keyboard monkey. A couple of laughs here and there with a couple of immature sex jokes fits into this theme. The humor comes from the fact that they are immature sex jokes.

[DaedalusYoung]

I can agree with you from the viewpoint of recommending LÖVE to other devs.
I have a YouTube channel, and I chose to be a strictly family friendly channel. I play games such as Minecraft, which are very popular in all age groups, though unfortunately many other players I watch on YouTube make it a habit (and are proud) to swear in their videos. I decided I would not do that and I happen to know several of my subscribers are actually younger viewers - children even.
I was thinking of making programming tutorials, but decided I could not do that about LÖVE, mainly because of these library names.

[kclanc]

For what it's worth, I agree with ejmr. I personally think that professionalism exists for good reasons; it is not an arbitrary set of rules and is applicable even outside of one's profession.

Consider the potential drawbacks of the immature innuendos that often find their way into LOVE library names.
-There has been a big push to get kids to learn to program these days. Due to its simplicity, LOVE would be an ideal learning platform. However, I think most parents would be hesitant to get their children started with LOVE after they see the names of some of the libraries available for LOVE.

-Lua is very popular in the video game industry. For example, it is used at Doublefine, Moai, and Havok. There are a lot of professional programmers who are interested in Lua and its applications in game development. These people could be contributing to the LOVE project, making it even more awesome than it already is. However, the abundance of innuendos is likely to scare away talented developers who are worried about their professional image. This isn't just something I am speculating about: I have worked in the game industry.

In my opinion, the single biggest thing that could be done to alleviate this situation would be to remove all innuendo libraries from the "libraries" section of the wiki. I know that some of those libraries were written by LOVE developers like bartbes and vrld, so I would like to ask these people to please reconsider their attitudes toward this matter. I also assume that rude has some say in this matter. rude: you have put a lot of work into this project. Considering how many followers and forks the project has, it's something to be proud of. It might even be something that could impress people who aren't even into game development (yeah, I realize how bold this statement is ). But if they find out that you endorse related projects whose names are sexual innuendos, they're going to think you're weird.

I'm not advocating the fascistic banning of anyone who creates a library with a sexual name. People should be free to post those in the forums if they want. All I'm asking is that some meager and reasonable steps be taken to counteract the trend. It wouldn't involve restricting or banning anyone on the forum or taking away anyone's free speech. All it would require is that the LOVE devs stop endorsing the trend.

[JovialFeline]

Conflicted. I understand the concern, especially if you're wishing to teach children how to make stuff in LÖVE. Even if they didn't have a clue what the terms meant (I was unaware of the "swingers" term 'til I was 22), it would likely leave a bad taste in your mouth. I honestly hadn't considered it, I think. I only recall mild amusement upon learning that "Lua" means "Moon".

So, what would you like to see done? Do you see this as more of a PSA/cautionary note or are you perhaps suggesting we (ask the authors to) refactor the existing libraries for a name change?

[Daniel Eakins]

I 100% agree with ejmr. The arguments against these kinds of names are real. Whereas the arguments in favour of these names boil down to "it's funny". Well, some of the best library names are not sex joke-based at all: anim8, middleclass, Löve Frames, Navi, Vapor, etc. My opinion is that you don't have to be immature to be funny or clever.

[ejmr]

Despite how it may seem to outsiders, programming really is a humor-prone job / hobby. Honestly, it kind of has to be; you've gotta have fun somehow, otherwise you'll just be a dreadful mindless keyboard monkey. A couple of laughs here and there with a couple of immature sex jokes fits into this theme. The humor comes from the fact that they are immature sex jokes.

I feel like immature sex jokes is something that professional programmers can keep behind close doors, or to put it another way, I don’t see what they gain by being public with them.

In my opinion, the single biggest thing that could be done to alleviate this situation would be to remove all innuendo libraries from the "libraries" section of the wiki.

I like this idea.

I'm not advocating the fascistic banning of anyone who creates a library with a sexual name. People should be free to post those in the forums if they want.

I also completely agree with this, even if my article gives the opposite impression. People should have the freedom, especially with such a project as this one, to name their contributions whatever they like. But they need to also be aware that a single dick joke can turn away people from not only their library, but the entire LÖVE engine, and that’s unfortunate considering how nice of an engine it is. The endorsement of such libraries on the official wiki makes me feel like the LÖVE devs do not really care about protecting the reputation of their brand, and for it’s worth I think that is a mistake not to care.

So, what would you like to see done?

kclanc’s idea of removing the questionably-named libraries from the official wiki ‘Libraries’ page may be a good start. However, I could also see those library authors feeling as if they are suddenly being snubbed. So a better first step may be to ask each of them to consider renaming their respective works.

[slime]

There are a couple libraries which have completely tactless and un-punny names (e.g. 'cock'). I don't like those.

Many of the other libraries people are referencing in this thread have names which actually make sense (albeit with multiple possible interpretations, usually).
Some are more 'borderline' than others and I prefer the more tasteful names usually (which does not exclude ones with clever puns), but there's no official endorsement for anything outside of LÖVE's actual API anyway.

Would you also like to rename [wiki]Joystick:setVibration[/wiki]? Or the future love.touch module?