programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
As I work on UI prototypes for the new web venture, I've been brainstorming names for the web site we're building. I've surveyed some of the finest minds in the software developer community (for very small values of "fine"), and we've come to a collective realization: naming a website is hard. Really, really hard.
You begin to have a new respect for all the crazily-named Web 2.0 startups. And then there are the domain names which must not be named. Some of them are actually serious. What were the people who named experts-exchange.com thinking? I'm not so sure they were.
We've racked our collective brains, and this is the best we could do. We'd like your input to see if we're on the right track. Vote for the name that best embodies what you'd like to see on a software developer community website.
(voting is now over; the winner was stackoverflow.com)
| humbledeveloper.com | 563 | 8% | |
| fellowhackers.com | 302 | 4% | |
| gosub10.com or gosubten.com | 334 | 5% | |
| writeoncereadmany.com | 157 | 2% | |
| humbleprogrammers.com | 179 | 3% | |
| privatevoid.com | 934 | 14% | |
| cargocultdevs.com | 109 | 2% | |
| dereferenced.com | 755 | 11% | |
| bitoriented.com | 492 | 7% | |
| algorithmical.com | 301 | 4% | |
| corecursion.com | 96 | 1% | |
| metaprogramming.com | 373 | 5% | |
| stackoverflow.com | 1,721 | 25% | |
| understandrecursion.com | 35 | 1% | |
| shiftleft1.com | 102 | 1% | |
| (other) | 442 | 6% | |
| 6,895 |
I can't quite talk about what this developer community website will do yet, but we think it's going to be somewhat unique. It sure helps to put a name on it first.
We appreciate all feedback, even if it's of the "they all suck" variety. In that case, vote for the (other) option and leave your ideas in the comments or email me directly. You can use the clever as-you-type search at Instant Domain Search to figure out what's available. I'm warning you: it's a wasteland out there. You'll have to be pretty clever indeed to come up with an interesting, simple name that isn't taken -- or, worse, domain-squatted.
Update: If you're curious what the website will do, in broad terms, this recent audio interview I did with Thirsty Developer explains.
Commenters also pointed out some excellent articles on naming:
Hey Jeff,
privatevoid is a pretty cool name to be sure, but in the end the irony of linking to (un?)intentionally bad domain names and then putting up fellowhackers as a choice was too funny to pass up.
Cheers, I see your readership in growing by ten thousands every week.
Mix Lagula on April 6, 2008 6:20 AMYeah, "fello whackers". I thought someone might enjoy that. :)
Jeff Atwood on April 6, 2008 6:22 AMLooks like someone beat you to it and is squatting stackoverflow.com.
Dee on April 6, 2008 6:31 AMDoesn't seem that hard. How about "codercountry.com"? Less in-jokey, sure, but easy to remember.
Dan K. on April 6, 2008 6:48 AMprivatevoid sounds like a bodily function. :)
Andy Lee on April 6, 2008 6:49 AMhack-together.com
Jim on April 6, 2008 6:54 AMI vote for
developersdevelopersdevelopersdevelopers.com
Steve Ballmer would be proud.
and from this post forward, Jeff's readers will forever be trapped in a naming jihad. For now, I'm in a minority, but my pick is the best one, I don't care what everyone else says. The name I picked is smarter, faster, better, *er than the others. And *I*, and those that picked the same name, are -by extension- smarter, faster, better, *er !
Pffft to all the other names.
F.O.R.
PS: I was expecting to find fizzbuzz.something in the list !
"hack-together.com"
Not bad.
Andy Lee on April 6, 2008 6:57 AMhow about segfaulters.com?
Duc on April 6, 2008 6:59 AMFello Whackers, I laughed.
I like Stack Overflow and Private Void.
Andrex on April 6, 2008 7:03 AMI hope you bought all those names before some bastard sits on them.
bp on April 6, 2008 7:08 AMHUIDUILUI is available
jim maida on April 6, 2008 7:12 AMUmm have you registered all of these first? If not, expect none of them to be available once you've decided...
gue on April 6, 2008 7:13 AMHow about "bitwielders"
kmj on April 6, 2008 7:22 AMOkay, a few ideas in case stackoverflow.com is not available as per a previous comment:
stacksmashers.com (Probably too hackish. I also figured out the unique /thing/ to your site: parallel programming...)
Man, everything else is taken.
orangespokenhere.com
Shmork on April 6, 2008 7:26 AMToo bad you can't get permission from Ward and Cunningham to use pragmaticprogrammers.{net,com,org}. It seems most of what you do here is the spirit of that book - but maybe that's not what this new site will be about.
DJA on April 6, 2008 7:32 AMI like private void simply because it sounds rather Zen.
Camille on April 6, 2008 7:37 AMpublicstaticvoidmainstringargs.com
Porges on April 6, 2008 7:37 AMI must have that kinda brain, i never have trouble coming up with names! , develogical, devel-lution, Develutionary, codaholics, (and codaholicsanonymous ) savethecoder, (the obvious, d'oh) softwaredeveloperscommunity, softwareslew, all have every op available but not for long! Oh but better jump on softminded! I have MANY more, but keeping em to myself, will let them go for the right "price" Mwahahaha! Most of these I came up with in one or two tries.
D. on April 6, 2008 7:38 AMIt's true, by the time you decide they will be squatted, but i don't hafta care I can come up with tons more, no biggie. decide quick!
D. on April 6, 2008 7:43 AMDon't you risk having a domain squatter go through and register all those domains you just listed?
Stewart Johnson on April 6, 2008 7:43 AMHow about "NoGoTo.net?
RS Reitz on April 6, 2008 7:47 AM"Give your app a name that's easy to remember...And don't sweat it if you can't get the exact domain name you want." http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch13_Name_Hook.php
Also, if you have a great, memorable service that people want to recommend, they won't mind that you don't have the exact name.com for it - most of the time, addresses are bookmarked, Twittered, e-mailed, etc. so it's OK if the domain name is a little off. The main thing is to pick the name that's right for your service, not by what's available in a .com format. I don't quite remember where I read that, but for some reason I'm thinking it was http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032145345X
Rex on April 6, 2008 7:49 AMoranguglad?
Freekageek on April 6, 2008 7:52 AMI'm hoping these are either decoy ideas, or you've got some way of keeping the domain-names squatter free, because otherwise posting these in public is not a smart move.
That said, stackoverflow or privatevoid are both very cool names.
Bernard on April 6, 2008 7:54 AMI prefer humbledevelopers to humbleprogrammers. I would imagine that this site would be more than simple "code help".
Derek on April 6, 2008 7:55 AMI thought privatevoid and stackoverflow were best, suprised there wasn't something like nullreference.com
pete on April 6, 2008 7:57 AMor divisionbyzero.com
pete on April 6, 2008 7:58 AMDomain squatters should die a thousand painful deaths.
Greg on April 6, 2008 7:59 AMdoublepointer.net ?
i prefer a more ambiguous non-meaning sort of names. something catchy.. i think names like flickr, twitter etc, are very gimmicky, web2.0 if you will.
Jin on April 6, 2008 8:06 AMWhere's your PGP key so we can encrypt our responses to you so squatters can't take them? :P
ignacio on April 6, 2008 8:08 AMI agree! death to squatters! pop-a-squatter.com
Freekageek on April 6, 2008 8:09 AMGood call Jin! How 'bout devrrs.com? that's dirt easy! But mainly, this proves, you only THINK there are no names left! You just need flexibility, and "personal void" does indeed sound like we are taking a dump, but then again...
D on April 6, 2008 8:21 AMWell, if it's about development, and not just GUI lipstick, then you need to talk about data, so:
drcoddwasright.com
is appropriate, and available a couple of minutes ago.
bugyfunbunny on April 6, 2008 8:26 AMLooks like the most popular choice is already squatted and going for $1,188.
Paolo Bergantino on April 6, 2008 8:26 AMToo late, but www.while1fork.com sounded cool.
Mykelyk on April 6, 2008 8:39 AMWow! THAT QUICK, DEVVR.COM IS TAKEN! Guess it was a good one, lol. oh! :)
D on April 6, 2008 8:57 AMI have to share my favorite dot com era name
proposed for an educational portal website....
EduOrgNet.Com
much better than the one we eventually went with I think.
but I'll leave that to those in-the-know.
bsod.com, irq-not-equal.com
william on April 6, 2008 9:07 AMhow about fellowshipofthedevs.com?
bit of a laugh, bit catchy.
eh
Tim Yen on April 6, 2008 9:09 AMhexoffenders.com :p
artofprogramming.com
programmersguild.com, codeguild.com, (.+)guild.com
bitfiddler.com
codevault.com
codecrafters.com
bytefoundry.com
Maybe write a little program to mix some words and see if anything cool pops up?
Gustavo Duarte on April 6, 2008 9:09 AMCodingHorrorForum.com
CodingHorror.com/Forum.
what i will prefer is something starts with programer or programming
Sorry, but explodingcoder.com is already taken. No, not your's!
I suggest makeall.com, as in the make utility.
Well, to be honest, none of those are good names except maybe "privatvoid.com" I think you are asking the wrong people... "branding" (that's what this is) is not typically a skill most software developers possess. Do you know any creative directors/brand experts? If so, I would recommend you get their advice! You have a great blog btw, hope the new site is every bit as good!
Mark on April 6, 2008 9:26 AMdevelopersheaven.net
anything4developer
anythingfordeveloper
programmerforprogrammer
programmer4programmer
developer4developer
developerfordeveloper
devhorror
functioners
objectfunct
fjiord
teflite
hexla
Doubting these or any variations will be used - but a little perspective. Brand names are NAMES. Leave the front page for describing your product.
`Josh on April 6, 2008 9:29 AMok I'm back, I just had to go take a personal void...
Freekageek on April 6, 2008 9:45 AMhuge pointer dot com
josh on April 6, 2008 9:51 AMtarbit
codingtarpit
devtarpit
I really like the word "fellow" in a site like this. Gives the feeling of a group, is simple, and easy to remember. Placing it next to hackers makes it lose it's professional feeling in my opinion, you could try going with fellow and using words like "FellowDevs" and such. Good luck with your site!
sharpshark28 on April 6, 2008 9:59 AMI prefer humbledeveloper.com because most developers are 'average' and humility is essential among the programmer community in order to help these average developers to reach their full potential.
Sridhar Ratnakumar on April 6, 2008 10:04 AMJeff,
I know domains are hard to come by. That is why I created OpenDomain - we GIVE away domains. Some of the top domains that we have let people use for FREE: Drupal.Com, OpenAjax.Org, Xmpp.Org, Xaml.Net, GreyListing.Org, json.Com
Anyone want to use a great domain for FREE?
Contact us at OpenDomain.Org - I would love to help you out!
Please call the new site developercommunitywebsite.com.
Simple, neutral, says what it does.
Alternatively -- developerhorror.com -- un hommage to codinghorror.com.
:) tom
Tom on April 6, 2008 10:11 AMhackmybits
Parsley on April 6, 2008 10:13 AMThanks, I bought all these domains. For a mere 500k will hand over the name that wins the poll :)
I just bought all these domains on April 6, 2008 10:16 AMI thought you were trying to stay away from "funny" names!?
fellowhackers.com = Fello-Whackers.com
fello-whackers on April 6, 2008 10:18 AMpeveloder.com that ends that.
on a serious note, i think it's good to have a short domain name. it will be easier to make a logo for, and good for business card/printing. plus 1 word short names are catchier.
Jin on April 6, 2008 10:24 AMIsn't there a 5-day trial on domains at some places? I can't remember where, but maybe Jeff has already taken all of these domain names and then is going to "return" the bad eggs and keep the good golden egg on the 5th day.
Sentax on April 6, 2008 10:27 AMHmmmmmmmmm...
I am going with any of the guild ones.
@Gustavo
programmersguild.com, codeguild.com, (.+)guild.com
I'm voting for "they all suck".
You're much better off, IMHO, thinking of a distinctive, catchy name that doesn't mean anything, and then _giving_ it meaning by putting useful content on it. How many Google users do you think have any idea what the name means? Do Yahoo! or monster.com users even care?
Charles Miller on April 6, 2008 10:30 AMOf course, now that you've posted your ideas, they'll all be registered by the end of the day...
BlueRaja on April 6, 2008 10:40 AMI'm surprised no one has called you on this yet.
Imagine: you've been brainstorming a site idea for a while. You are collaborating, getting your ideas together. You're thinking, oh yeah! and we could do this too! At some point in this process a great name comes to you, and you think, perfect! that puts it all together; lets crank this out.
Really? You left your day job to start a developer site whose name you have yet to imagine. Jeff? WTF?!
sb on April 6, 2008 10:46 AMI really like "Humble Developer". I've really been thinking a lot about how important it is to be humble as a software developer (and about the large percentage of good coders who have egos so large as to render themselves a crappy software developers because no one can work with them and nothing gets done).
Anyway, best wishes with the new site!
Rob Lambert on April 6, 2008 10:52 AMI also like "orangespokenhere". I think the "orange" theme has a little bit of branding behind it. Or donate "codhinghorror" to the cause.
MattH on April 6, 2008 10:57 AMLooks like someone had to spend around $100 bucks on domains before making this post. Stack Overflow is really the only good choice there. I picked other, though. And your parking pages are really annoying.
Sam McDonald on April 6, 2008 10:58 AMguessing at what you are doing... i would like to propose:
hit any key to continue .domain
dev honey pot .domain
devfacia .domain
hack re direct .domain
hack a stack .domain
hackenstack .domain
needleina hackstack .domain
hack fellows .domain
no port unturned .domain
wild wild hack .domain
and out of the blue:
dev fido .domain
cult dev .domain
all d.o.t.com open as of this posting...
just take out the spaces :)
thats all i can think of right now...
good luck!
i like the last one :) sounds trendy :)
ChesterKC on April 6, 2008 11:05 AMAll of the suggested domain names will be gone within hours.
Moritz on April 6, 2008 11:30 AMI hear you Moritz...
thats why i already reserved the one i like for Jeff.
Some of these suggestions are pretty good. Keep 'em coming. Remember: naming is *hard*. We all suck at it.
You're much better off, IMHO, thinking of a distinctive, catchy name that doesn't mean anything
Such as... what? I'd appreciate it if those of you who voted (other) would offer some kind of alternat name suggestions.
Really? You left your day job to start a developer site whose name you have yet to imagine. Jeff? WTF?!
I often don't know what the title of a particular blog post will be until I'm 90% done writing it. This is a normal workflow, at least for me: things do not reveal themselves until you near the end.
Looks like someone had to spend around $100 bucks on domains before making this post.
Of course I registered them all beforehand, just in case. Cost of doing business.
Jeff Atwood on April 6, 2008 11:42 AMit's amazing how one thinks a name, searches it and it's there already...and hardly related.
codebomb.net
devhut.net
devconnect.net
i liked the alldot.com, onlydot.net, dotnetdotnet.net, digidea
all gone.
i hope u got a unique angle on this, i can't imagine we need another codeproject...suppose u gotta harvest some of that ad rev. somehow tho.
chrs.
eryn on April 6, 2008 11:54 AMcodeapprentice.com was free last time I checked.
Although I wonder how long until someone buys up everything listed here...
Graphain on April 6, 2008 11:55 AMwe should have a vote-off type event, where the top half go on to the next round of voting. Then repeat until there is a WINNER!
nitePhyyre on April 6, 2008 11:56 AMAh, you bought them already :)
Graphain on April 6, 2008 11:56 AMI'd say that names like ubuntu uses for it's releases are much easier to remember than the ones you have found.
Like... developer-dating (I wouldn't vote for that one!)
Georg
Georg on April 6, 2008 12:04 PMconsideredharmless dot com would be fun.
Rog on April 6, 2008 12:10 PMA few suggestons:
nullpointer
garbagecollectors
JITSpotting
pragmawarning
www.null-reference.com?
Vitaly on April 6, 2008 12:25 PMYou are programmers, aren't you? Create a simple script to produce a list of weird names - 6 char names are a very good choice -
Nikos on April 6, 2008 12:27 PMHere a script generated name: www.code4all.com
Nikos on April 6, 2008 12:39 PMAny chance you might divulge what you'll be using for a CMS, if at all?
Cheers.
Patrick on April 6, 2008 12:57 PMOk so other already found fello whackers.. but what about core cursion?
Winsmith on April 7, 2008 2:00 AMUsman Shaheen's idea of codinghorror.com/forum may well be the best though.
To be clear, this is not intended as a forum. It's a new web property with a different (but related) focus.
fizzbuzz.com
It looks like fizzbuzz.com is expiring (technically it expired March 18th). If one of the "good guys" -- not the domain squatters, but an actual developer -- ends up with that domain, that'd be awesome. Hint hint hint. :)
Jeff Atwood on April 7, 2008 2:05 AMI liked the name codeappeal.com and codeappeal.net so much that I bought them! Thanks for the muse. and if you're interested they are for sale.
Kyle_Woodbury@hotmail.com - Soon to be Kyle_Woodbury@codeappeal.com
nochere a plea as well as a name :)
Robin2 on April 7, 2008 2:07 AMgetWhnd is free, returncero as well.
GUI Junkie on April 7, 2008 2:16 AMI've spent some time suggesting names on http://www.pickydomains.com/ so I know how hard it is. You might want to check them out for some suggestions. Here's what I could come up with. You'll have to sift through the chaff.
h4ckr
hackitgood
hackinghorror
hackmake
hackityhack
hackfunk
modulofunk (modulo funk)
modmake
zipmod
rapmod
patternmod
singletoncode
singletonshare
code25 (seriously all previous ones were taken. Think WD40)
codedecorator
codecorator
codelope
codingcomedy
codingdrama
nonfictioncoding
codinghack
codehackmod
codecornucopia
coducopia
cuppacode
codecorn
codecompost
codewrapper
codingparty
allnightdev
devindev (short for dev in development)
devmodulo
devmodshop
devfunk
devod
10000devs
zippydev
ligercode
enterorange
makacker (Make Hacker shoved together)
I vote against any elitist "inside-joke" style url names. "CodingHorror" is understandable to even someone with nominal IT background. "nullvoid" or whatever just sounds lame. My 2 cents.
Rich Bateman on April 7, 2008 2:31 AMI voted for cargocultdevs.com, I think it's quite unique, sounds cool and really stands out from the rest of the names. Unfortunately not many people seem to think like me, it has only got 1% of all votes. Either people don't like it or they haven't heard of cargo cult programming (shame on you! :P).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
Gh0sT on April 7, 2008 2:32 AMSpeaking of downsides to awkward blog names: When I mumble, I apparently say your current blog name as "codingwhore.com".
Michael G on April 7, 2008 2:32 AMI really like Krishnan's idea of "programmer4programmer" or even "programmer2programmer"...
Armando on April 7, 2008 2:42 AMif the website will be about asp .net, that name it "ObjectReferenceNotSetToAnInstanceOfAnObject.net" :P
I reckon this is one of the top Visual Studio debugger error search phrases in google by n00bs :)
Rus on April 7, 2008 2:44 AMCodingPleasure.com ?
Wondering on April 7, 2008 2:51 AMYou should probably find another cool in book image and name the site after that.
ADirtyHack.com
I don't have anything in particular in mind, but it fits your theme.
Jeff Davis on April 7, 2008 2:54 AMIf I were to be bad, I'd register them all.
Thomas on April 7, 2008 3:01 AMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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