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Renaming the Schwartzian Transform

by EvanCarroll (Chaplain)
on Sep 21, 2005 at 04:45 UTC ( [id://493658]=perlmeditation: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Fellow monks, I have a new and insightful meditation. I hereby make the suggestion that we rename the "Schwartzian Transform," to the "Evan Transform." I admit that the llama book is extremely well written, and that Randal Schwartz is probably one of the better Perl ninjas that hasn't ascended and joined the ranks of the ancients. However, let us all consider the consequence of his name. It is neither American English nor easy to remember, it gives new Perl programmers the sensation of med school study. The mere fact that his last name has a silly 'Z' is not enough, but look at the word 'wart' lying totally within Sch-wart-zian. Further evidence can be found by the fact that his name has four consecutive consonants, this is clearly unacceptable.

Lets consider for a moment the merits of my claim. "Evan" is easy to remember and simplifies spelling. Twenty-five percent of the letters that occur in Evan also occur in Perl. Evan is four letters, less typing allows programmers to be me more lazy, which according to Larry's philosophy is something that all programmers aspire for. Renaming the "Schwartzian Transform" to the "Evan Transform" would bring us one step closer to this goal.

I hope you give my consideration deep thought, and welcome the change to come.

Evan Carroll

Inspired by IRC™::
22:13 < StoneToad> funky name for a really useful thing :D ... 22:13 < hobbs> StoneToad: we'll tell Mr. Schwartz that you think his n +ame is funky ;) 22:14 < EvanCarroll> I should do that. ... 2:14 < EvanCarroll> I'm posting right now on perl monks, The Schwartzi +an trasnform is a stupid name for a usefull method, I suggest we rena +me it to the Evan Transform because the name "Evan" is l33t and short +. -- Evan Carroll 22:14 < Daveman> haha 22:15 < StoneToad> haha 22:15 < Daveman> evan, sounds good... ... 22:15 < StoneToad> sounds almost like spring water >_> 22:15 * StoneToad suggest the spring water transform, that'll really +confuse people

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 21, 2005 at 09:30 UTC
    Since 'Schwartz' is close to the German 'schwarz', meaning 'black', and since for most people, the Schwartzian Transform is sufficiently advanced, I propose to rename the Schwartzian Transform to Black Magic.
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by CountZero (Bishop) on Sep 21, 2005 at 06:35 UTC
    Well, to remain consistent, it should at least be called Evanian transform and that sounds too much like an ex-catwalk model gone past her "sell-by" date or some hip French table water. It would put Perl squarely in the middle of the hip crowd, whereas Schwartzian Transform has a rough worker-like ring to it which befits the Swiss Army Chainsaw of Programming Languages!

    ;-)

    CountZero

    "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

      Well no, the former should really be called the Schwartz Transform. After all, we don't talk of Huffmanian encoding, Hammingian coding, Lempel-Ziff-Welshian compression or Blum-Blum-Shubbian PRNGs :)

      • another intruder with the mooring in the heart of the Perl

        Hmm, you're right, and those all have such nifty rings to them, I think I'll start doing that.

        .oO(Now is that pronounced huff-man-ee-an or huff-main-ee-an?)

        Tongue firmly in cheek for the humor impared

        -Scott

        I bow before your superior knowledge of the English language.

        But even then the "Evan Transform" doesn't sound that it can do the same heavy lifting the "Schwartz Transform" can.

        CountZero

        "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler." - Conway's Law

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Courage (Parson) on Sep 21, 2005 at 08:20 UTC
    Schwartz, when written in Russian, only 5 letters long and is very easy to use and remember.

    That name's inconvenience is actually unfortunate effect of English spelling of non-English name, so go to linguist forum and explain there how bad spelling in English works.

    Best regards,
    Courage, the Cowardly Dog

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Taulmarill (Deacon) on Sep 21, 2005 at 08:30 UTC
    <joke>i would vote for "Jürgens Veränderung", because it has umlauts in it and is 100% german, not those half german half english "Schwartzian". to rename Transform to it's german equivalent is only consistent.</joke>

    oh, and by the way, if this is not a joke:
    you seem to be a very bored person, take your work and energy somewhere usefull.
Speaking of 7 consonants in a row
by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Sep 21, 2005 at 19:17 UTC

    I thought it was pretty funny too and ++'d it to try to make up for the inexplicable cold reception. I am compelled to point out, however, that "Evan" is not English. It's Welsh. And we all know what those people are like.

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Tanktalus (Canon) on Sep 21, 2005 at 14:29 UTC

    Personally, I'm disappointed at the downvotes. I always thought that when one made a joke here in a direction that would normally be unpopular, one was supposed to go over the top to make it obvious that there was a joke going on here - after all, you can't see body language in a posting on the 'net. For example, my highest-rated joke post. Garnering such a decent reputation for that node, I thought, was a validation of this theory.

    I suppose there are too many nationalists bringing their nationalistic politics to their voting here to see the humour. Which is unfortunate, because I've seen very little other signs of politic-based-anything here.

    Don't get me wrong - I can be as nationalistic as the next person, but I don't need to use that as a gauge of humour. Being Canadian, I scoff at being called American, but Southpark's "Blame Canada" was still funny.

      Yeah, I'm kind of baffled at the reaction here too. Maybe your node was more well-received because more Monks recognize you, and realize that you are usually helpful and serious? I guess it goes to show how unpredictable other peoples' votes are sometimes. :-)

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by zentara (Archbishop) on Sep 21, 2005 at 10:58 UTC
    Personally, I think having unique names enhances my ability to remember it. Evanian, although it sounds nice, would quickly sink into obscurity in the ocean of perl-memory-fragments. Whereas Schwartzian, stands out like a marker-buoy, which is immediately evoked whenever I hear the word "transform".

    I bet it will be a Jeopardy question some day. ;-)


    I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by revdiablo (Prior) on Sep 21, 2005 at 06:08 UTC

    You proselytizing zealot.

    Update: the amount of seriousness by other Monks in this thread is making me slightly sad. :-(

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 21, 2005 at 11:20 UTC
    I don't have much trouble in writing 'Schwartzian Transform'. But who cares how it's written? The 'Gutt?man-Ross?ler Transform' is generally faster anyway, and that's what we should learn to our kids. But I can never remember how many t's and s'ses I need in 'GRT'. :\ Can't we just rename GRT to 'beer'? That's easy to spell, and allows us to talk about Perl on the NY.pm mailing list while staying on topic.
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by jacques (Priest) on Sep 21, 2005 at 06:39 UTC
    Jacques Transform has a nice ring to it. :)
      Wouldn't it be Jacques's Transform? But then you end up with too many esses. :)
        No need to be possessive, neither of Fourier and Laplace were.
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by QM (Parson) on Sep 21, 2005 at 20:22 UTC
    "May the Schwartz be with you".

    Damn, late again.

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by sauoq (Abbot) on Sep 21, 2005 at 16:51 UTC

    I laughed. ++

    -sauoq
    "My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
    
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by mojotoad (Monsignor) on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:28 UTC
    I see your Evan bigger than his is. Let's see how well you use it.

    Matt ;)

Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by McDarren (Abbot) on Sep 22, 2005 at 06:41 UTC
    Personally, I think Schwartzian Transform is entirely appropriate and describes it perfectly

    Schwartzian - only [id://merlyn] could come up with something like that.
    Transform - it transforms my brain into mush when I try to get my head around it.

    -- Darren
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by Anonymous Monk on Sep 23, 2005 at 20:45 UTC
    Well, "schwartz" means "black", which also means "evil".

    So I say we rename it the "Evil Transform". Which it is. :-)

      Nice idea, way too late. Tom Christiansen, who named it the Schwartzian Transform in the first place, made the connection in 1996.

      Between the mind which plans and the hands which build, there must be a mediator... and this mediator must be the heart.
Re: Renaming the Schwartzian Transform
by monarch (Priest) on Sep 22, 2005 at 03:22 UTC
    I am not too fond of the name, however it has gained widespread acceptance, not least due to one individual's efforts to publicise it.

    I do not credit, however, the discovery of this way of sorting records to the man with the name. I have found myself doing things this way long before I arrived at perlmonks. And I have not read any articles or books by the man with the name attributed to the transform.

    However, to keep things simple, as we all must strive for, the name has been given and changing it would only mark an ego vs pragmatism battle.

      I do not credit, however, the discovery of this way of sorting records to the man with the name. I have found myself doing things this way long before I arrived at perlmonks.

      The Schwartzian Transform was named Schwartzian Transform many years before Perlmonks even existed. Lore goes that the name was given by Randals arch nemesis, Tom Christiansen. Oldest reference to 'Schwartzian Transform' I could find using Google groups dates from 1995: <4b2eag$odb@csnews.cs.colorado.edu>.

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