What’s in a name?

nhungthientai

Hi guys,
Hope this doesn’t come across as a really stupid question, or should I say, hope this doesn’t come across as a question that shows my stupidity…

You have me interested in the name “nodebb”. Can you shed some light on where the name came from and whether it means anything in particular?

Thanks in advance.

PitaJ

@nhungthientai "BB" stands for "bulletin board". A bulletin board is a community place for posting bulletins talking about current events, etc. Here's what they look like:

A very common and early forum software is called "PhpBB" which started the trend of naming forum software xyz-BB.

NodeBB runs on Node.js, so it was called NodeBB

julian

That's it in a nutshell. We know it's not the "hippest" or "coolest" name, but one thing is for certain – it never really goes out of style. It's utilitarian and functions to do one thing, explain what the software is.

MJ

@julian said in What’s in a name?:

We know it's not the "hippest" or "coolest" name

For BB software it's the perfect name A name that stands for what it is. And for software you must have a name that says what it stands for. The best names in the software have names that says something about the software/product.

phpBB A Bulletin Board written in PHP.
Windows An OS that displays the content in 'windows'.
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) It cleans all the crap from the PC.
Google is named after Googol, a 1 with a lot 0's. Google can search a lot information and back in the day Google used for every page an extra O where every O was a page of something you searched. (Gooooooooooooooogle).

So... NodeBB runs on Node.js so it was called NodeBB.

rod

@nhungthientai Along with all of that above there is this:

nodeBB

julian

Thanks @rod! I'd forgotten we had discussed this topic in an earlier thread Good to know the reasoning hasn't changed... sometimes history gets a little hazy.

scottalanmiller

@nhungthientai said in What’s in a name?:

You have me interested in the name “nodebb”.

Node refers to the language and platform on which the community is built: NodeJS

Node is so important as a technology that they were advertising their design choices.

BB is the industry standard for Bulletin Board and most forums were called BBs back in the day and one of the biggest competitors of NodeBB is phpBB. So using that in the name conveys instantly to users what the intended deployment cases are expected to be.

yariplus

@MJ Nah, still does it on desktop.

scottalanmiller

@julian said in What’s in a name?:

That's it in a nutshell. We know it's not the "hippest" or "coolest" name, but one thing is for certain – it never really goes out of style. It's utilitarian and functions to do one thing, explain what the software is.

Forums and "cool names" aren't a good match, anyway.

MJ

@yariplus said in What’s in a name?:

@MJ Nah, still does it on desktop.

hehe, you're right

Did not know google still does it