The Coq mailing list

[Derek Dreyer <dreyer AT mpi-sws.org>]

Ah, that's a pity.  However, there are many other promising
suggestions on the wiki.  It seems to me that, given that Coq was
developed in France, and English is the international language of
computer science research, it should be possible to come up with an
alternative name that does not sound like a vulgar word in (at the
very least) French and English, and ideally in as many languages
spoken by Coq users as possible.  Given how important a tool Coq is
for many of us, I think it's not really too much to ask.

Thanks,
Derek

On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 12:36 AM Benedikt Ahrens
<benedikt.ahrens AT gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Derek, dear all,
>
> "Coquina" sounds very much like "coquine", which in french can mean
> "slut". Is this acceptable, because it is not English?
>
> A naive Google search tells me that there are 7000 languages in the
> world. Are suggestions for new names going to be vetted against all of them?
>
> I cannot help feeling that this movement to abolish the name "Coq" is an
> instance of anti-diversity (here, of language) making me feel, in turn,
> quite uncomfortable.
>
> Best,
> Benedikt
>
>
> On 06/04/2021 23:23, Derek Dreyer wrote:
> > Indeed, lots of good suggestions on the wiki.  I particularly like the
> > suggestion of Coquina, which in addition to combining Coq and Gallina,
> > also has semantic value.  According to Wikipedia, "Coquina
> > (/koʊˈkiːnə/) is a sedimentary rock that is composed either wholly or
> > almost entirely of the transported, abraded, and mechanically sorted
> > fragments of the shells of mollusks, trilobites, brachiopods, or other
> > invertebrates."
> >
> > What's more foundational than a rock?!  Especially one with
> > mechanically *sort*-ed fragments! ;-)
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Derek
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 9:30 PM Talia Ringer <tringer AT cs.washington.edu> 
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> My favorite suggestions in the wiki are the ones that include Coq as a 
> >> substring, so that you can keep referring to it as Coq in French, and 
> >> just elaborate in English.
> >>
> >> Also, I'm really happy to see so many suggestions and so much 
> >> constructive feedback in the Wiki! I would expect this community to be 
> >> constructive ;)
> >>
> >> On Tue, Apr 6, 2021 at 11:45 AM Emilio Jesús Gallego Arias <e AT x80.org> 
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Andrew Appel <appel AT princeton.edu> writes:
> >>>
> >>>> So I propose a solution for discussion: keep the name Coq and explain
> >>>> that the correct pronunciation in English of the tool name is "Coke"
> >>>> (and this pronunciation has nothing to do with the pronunciation of
> >>>> coq in French or cock in English). But for this solution to work, the
> >>>> whole (anglophone) community has to adopt it.
> >>>
> >>> Indeed, at the very least the Coq team should officially recommend to
> >>> pronounce "Coq" as "coke" in English; this is a solution not exempt of
> >>> flaws, but it seems to me that it is the only-short term viable
> >>> workaround for now.
> >>>
> >>> I will make the point on the next Coq dev meeting.
> >>>
> >>> My impression is that the Coq team would be happy to consider a name
> >>> change would a good replacement come up, there is indeed great concern
> >>> w.r.t. the side-effects of the current name.
> >>>
> >>> We don't get reminded often of it tho, I'd say mainly due to two 
> >>> reasons:
> >>>
> >>> - IAANM, there is not native English speaker in the Coq team
> >>>
> >>> - Research and work in France happens mostly in French, and it turns out
> >>>    that "Coq" is a superb name in French! It is easily associated to
> >>>    "national pride", which really helps (subconsciously) in national
> >>>    funding contexts for example.
> >>>
> >>> Brainstorming a bit, a possibility to try to keep the best of both
> >>> worlds is to keep "The Coq Project" as the official name of the project,
> >>> however name the particular implementation distributed by the project in
> >>> a different way.
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards,
> >>> E.