Re: Re: Postgres vs. PostgreSQL

Please excuse the intrusion.

As one who has been following this list since its inception and
who vaguely remembers the name change discussion of 3, 4 ... how
many years ago ... let me say that PostgreSQL IS difficult to
know how to pronounce. I remember thinking at the time (and my
son was making a few minor contributions to the code then) that
the new name good sense logically, but was a stumbling block to
introducing the program to the world at large. Of course it's
a fait accompli now.

The specific stumbling block is the capitalization. Unlike the
pronunciation of Linux, where it is merely a question of how to
pronounce the vowels, and everyone can do that naturally in
their own most comfortable way, with postgreSQL the natural
tendency to pronounce the miniscule portion as one 'word' is
always in conflict with the tendency to begin the second 'word'
at the capital S. So one wants to say 'postgres', (which to me
has always immediately conjured up an antonym of 'progress', but
that's another story) but is stopped short, as it were, at
'postgre', an awkward place to stop, at least to native English
speakers.

Maybe if it were written postgresQL, it would be easier to
pronounce correctly when first met. Then the QL would be given
some meaning relevant to the program and the sQL would still
bring to mind the relationship with SQL but in a not quite so
blatant way.

Anyway, I predict that there will always be a problem with the
pronunciation of postgreSQL it as it stands now. (Of course it's
easy to pronounce once you know how to pronounce it.)

Jon


--
Jon Babcock <jon@kanji.com>