Suggestion to rename the project

[ryanflorence]

I'm okay with a solid pun in conversation but its really hard to suggest using testacular in many, many settings.

Or at least stick to the (spec|test)acular combined word in marketing and quit talking about "balls".

[tomdale]

Many people are interested in using Testacular with their Ember.js apps, but I don't feel comfortable recommending something with a name that could be offensive to some developers.

[eviltrout]

While it may seem like a harmless joke, titles like this can be surprisingly alienating. I am in favor of renaming the project.

[jergason]

I agree, the name is crass and off-putting.

[scottsword]

How about Ballstastic?

[dcaliri]

👎 to renaming the project. One makes recommendations upon generated value and not because it has a fancy or "professional name (?)"

[jsoverson]

@dcaliri, people may not choose a framework because of a name, but they definitely will not bother looking into one because of it.

Justifying a potentially offensive name because the technology underneath it is valuable is exactly the reason why a name change could be considered.

I have seen this come up socially before and it would be nice if the name wasn't a sticking point.

[ryanflorence]

@dcaliri If the project had the n-word how much value would it have to generate to justify it?

This isn't a demand, just a suggestion. I am saying that I'm not going to be using this project at work because of its name. I'm also not going to be writing blog posts or recording screencasts and marketing what is a really, really great product. I'm also less likely to push it as the suggested way to test in ember.

[jacobian]

You might be interested in reading about a similarly-named project, Testosterone, which the creator renamed after thinking about the potentially-alienating effects a gendered name can cause.

[drnikki]

👍

[dignifiedquire]

I have to say I find it a little shocking how easily people get offended, but I think we have great value here and if it really offends people that much and stops them from using it then I have no problem with renaming it.

[reinh]

@dignifiedquire It isn't necessarily about being offended. It's about feeling excluded or alienated because of your membership in a group. It's about being the only woman on your already male-biased software engineering team in a male-biased software engineering industry and then being told (by men) to use a testing tool that reminds you of men's balls every time you use it. "Othering" only weakens communities.

I don't have a problem per se with the word "testacular". It could be seen as a simple play on "testing" and "spectacular". Others who don't share my privilege might feel differently and certainly there are other names one could use.

However, once you make the "testicular" connection explicit in your marketing material it makes whole project seem about as mature and professional as first grade recess. It's unfriendly to a pretty large group of people and damaging to the project's reputation and mindshare.

[jamesarosen]

+1 I think @reinh put it really well.

[jacobian]

@dignifiedquire who's offended? You're the first person to use that word here; that's a strawman argument.

I have no dog in this fight particularly, but it's a pretty well-established fact that gendered names in tech are a problem. If you're OK with being exclusionary go right ahead, but it's a hell of silly hill to die on.

[dcaliri]

I got the arguments and agree with those, but it surprises me also those "I feel offended" attitude and I disagree on making that change. I'd rather politely let them analize their attitude and offer my "product" gently. This whole "issue" makes me sad, sincerely.

[mattvanhorn]

I agree with the comments about othering, but I much preferred 1st grade recess to most of the stupid bullshit that passes for company culture these days. So +1 for more inclusive, and -1 for more mature.

[reinh]

@dcaliri Tom suggested that "some developers may feel offended". That is not the only, or even the best, reason to consider changing the name. Let's not get sidetracked here.

[dcaliri]

I still find the name great >> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Testacular

[searls]

I'm for changing the name. I used testacular for a while, but switched to testem (I think it's a better tool for the job), but in the time I used testacular I didn't get a single straight-faced reaction back. Incidentally I could never get anyone to consider using testacular either.

I thought the name was incidental (like "tubular" or "spectacular" but for tests); if it was an intentional play on words then that's just poor marketing.

Edit: and good grief, why not just call it "spectacular", since 90% of us are using jasmine or mocha anyway?

[reinh]

@dcarli Ok, let's take a look at those definitions.

1. Testacular:
   

   a word a man may use to describe something both truly spectacular and manly; the word is a combination of spectacular and testicles.

Really? You think this is a "great" name for a software project? I think all we may have to accept the possibility that the latent sexism in your choice of name was intentional on your part.

In which case, all I can really do is strongly suggest that you do some self-reflection on whether or not you are being an asshole -- and whether you want to stop being one -- and ask other people if they really want to be associated with a project or a person who acts in this way. I don't. I find your behavior to be childish, sexist, and extremely disappointing.

[davemo]

👍 to Spectacular, easily marketable and avoids all the issues the current name has that are mentioned above.

[dignifiedquire]

@reinh I think the point here was to be funny and not to fuel any sexism. I know that there are many problems in this area especially in the current tech culture but I find it a little bit extreme to say that everything that gets described by a male attribute would be sexist. Don't get me wrong the name in the context with these definitions is not really marketable in a serious conversation I can see that but I think that a gender discussion is a little bit over the top in this context.

[jroes]

I like spectacular 👍

Wonder if we can start a trend and get crack and cocaine renamed too... :)

[reinh]

@dignifiedquire You should really stop for a moment and try to think about this from the perspective of someone who doesn't have testicles. Seriously, try it. You might realize how absurd your comment is.

[mattvanhorn]

"Lighten up" is not really an appropriate response to the issue @reinh brings up. See also: http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/

[isaacsanders]

@dignifiedquire @reinh Or even ask someone without testicles whether they are entertained by it...

[envygeeks]

@reinh I asked somebody who didn't have testicles and testicles did not enter into their mind when they saw it.

[tbranyen]

Considering this is funded by Google, I'm surprised the name made it past their marketing team.

[reinh]

@envygeeks That's what I said at first too but @dcaliri has made it clear that it was his intent to give the project a sexist name. That's what I'm talking about now.

@tbranyen Really, it is?! I think Google should seriously reconsider that decision.

[tbranyen]

Who do you think pays the Angular team?

[searls]

Yeah, I was going to play the Google card here too, but then they'd be tipped off to the existence of github.

[dcaliri]

@ayust ok, I think we ALL agree on your 2nd answer about "purpose and/or malicious", nevertheless it happened. Now, how many countries, cultures, languages, tribes, whatever exists that may have access to this as you or me do? Pontentially, lots.

Then we are just throwing the coin to the air once again, and it took effort, time, discussions, etc. That time could have been used on coding to empower the tool.

I didn't said that it was a crime to rename it I just said I felt sad, because we are still behaving as a child that was abused and therefore is expecting the worse. It's been very difficult for me to follow the whole thread and comments because I do not speak english on a daily basis and of course it's not my native language, and I want to quote a refrain (?) in my culture: "Como te ven, así te tratan" that would mean something like "You'll be treated as you are shown" (dunno if I'm really translating the real message). The point is, you know there was no intended offense, you know that this is a really nice piece of code, you know that the ones behind this are cool and nice people..... so, should we really make emphasis on this "it's about testicles, and then it's sexist" thing or should we move on and make emphasis on "its about an spectacular testing tool" and try to be optimistic and happy?

[dcaliri]

@jmaite I agree on that we could move the discussion elsewhere as its stated that it's gonna be renamed, thou I think that the best place is still this one. I'm not offended or attacked at all btw

[ryanflorence]

Please do :)

Edit:

I had stopped following this thread. Just noticed @vojtajina decided to change the name. Thanks 👍

Lest I be labeled as the over-sensitive jerk, I just wanted to use the project w/o having to waste time on the name with other people in the same way I would have wasted time if it were named "PoopTest".

Thanks again. Karma is a really great name. If you don't write tests, karma is going to come back and bite you. Its perfect.

[jmaite]

@dcaliri have you heard of "dime con quien andas, y te dire quien eres"? Many people have voiced that they didn't want to use the project because of the name alone. Leaving people's feelings aside, showing a potential client the tools used can possibly damage a brand if they find it offensive. Renaming it sends a clear message of what the project stands for and will probably mean more support from the community.

[dcaliri]

I agree, but we would be paying the cost of not aiming to that ideal world. The cost is that we will be farther instead of closer. The refrain makes me think this: "Oh, you have a friend that is an adict, you are an addict.". I'm not a fan of that refrain.

[justinko]

titstacular or GTFO

[jamosonic]

Topical: http://www.gotfuturama.com/Multimedia/EpisodeSounds/2ACV15/04.mp3

[thomascampbelladams]

👍 To the karma name change. The old name wasn't really offensive to me or anything, but was a bit embarrassing to bring up in conversations.

[shinuza]

Agreed, I had an interview this morning, and I had a hard time explaining what it was.

[n0x00]

if your shy about saying words, pronounce it differently, might i suggest it being phonetically pronounced - Test acoolar

I can't believe how prudish the world has become, it's a fun name. if it offends then surely that's the choice of the person choosing to be offended

FREEEEEDOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

John
agent@thegentlemanhackersclub.com

On 11 Mar 2013, at 13:08, Samori Gorse notifications@github.com wrote:

Agreed, I had an interview this morning, and I had a hard time explaining what it was.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[unbalancedparentheses]

"Testacular. Javascript Test Runner with Balls" I think you should add this ascii emoticon to the name 8======D

[vojtajina]

Ok, I believe I can close this now.

If anybody finds "karma" offending, let me know, we can rename it - I think I got pretty good at project renaming in last two days ;-)

[matthewblott]

I only looked this up because I just watched a YouTube video where one of the developers refused to answer the question on why the project was renamed. I had no idea it was to avoid any potential offence (I thought it was because Karma is easier to type). I'm someone who considers themselves pretty PC - I think it's good that offensive racist, sexist and homophobic language is out of fashion - but at the same time we need to beware of those who almost go out of their way to find things to be offended by. The name of the project was an obvious fusion of the words "spectacular" and "test" it hadn't even occurred to me it could be anything else. I'm more concerned by Google's pitiful contributions to the treasury on its vast profits at a time when the rest of us are feeling the squeeze than one of its project names that will only ever cause offence to the sort of insufferable killjoys who are liable to get upset about virtually anything.

[reinh]

@jackswift While you personally did not make the connection, you should acknowledge that other people are not you and have different experiences and think different thoughts. My wife happened to glance at my screen while I was looking at the Testacular homepage and immediately asked me, "So is that about balls?" with a rather disapproving look. I don't think her thoughts are any less valid than mine or yours.

The name of the project was an obvious fusion of the words "spectacular" and "test" it hadn't even occurred to me it could be anything else.

Please keep in mind that at one point the official tagline for the project was "Testacular: Javascript test runner with balls".

I'm more concerned by Google's pitiful contributions to the treasury on its vast profits...

Non sequitur. We can disapprove of Google's corporate practices and also disapprove of puerile project names that a significant number of people find unwelcoming.

[adityamenon]

This broke the angular-phonecat project's testing abilities, when used in conjunction with the official AngularJS tutorial. I don't think it can be fixed without starting over with fresh commits and tags. I was excited to try out Angular and the first experience on the official tutorial was a bug I had to look at the comments to fix.

All I will say is, I now understand why some developers tend to find niche languages they can safely burrow into, at least when they are simply coding for fun. Also understand why hipsters hate the mainstream.

[adityamenon]

I don't know, @vojtajina, 'Karma' is such a Hindu/Buddhist concept, after all. Maybe the faithful will get offended by the concept sprung from idolatrous religions! Better keep your project renaming bash script at the ready.

[IgorMinar]

@adityamenon the angular-phonecat tutorial is now updated to use karma. Try to clone the repo from scratch and it should work. please file an issue at the tutorial repo if it doesn't.

[adityamenon]

@IgorMinar Hi, it has been? Hmm, I see that there is a branch called v1.0-update, maybe this is the one? Would be nice if the master got updated... I just cloned and started using right away.

There exists an issue on the repo already complaining about this :) angular/angular-phonecat#47

One more thing is, even if the branch got updated, the tutorial makes us do git checkout -f step-x at every step x. This resets the sh files to use 'testacular' again... this will still cause problems, right? Maybe these steps should be removed from the tutorial? Even better would be instructions on how to keep using karma as testacular, if that is possible..

[IgorMinar]

@adityamenon I forgot to clone angular/angular-phonecat#47. I did it now. the master branch now uses karma. just run ./scripts/update-repo.sh to update the repo or reclone it from scratch.

[uchennafokoye]

Github is sexist in general. Everything about it. "Fork a repo," what is that?! "Hardcore Forking Action" Seriously! And then they give women "private repos." Tell me I'm taking it too far, but GitHub - the makers - are sexist. I wouldn't use Github for this reason.

This might not matter to the men because it doesn't really affect them. But look how one word "testacular" roughed the surface. But if we talk about even the attribute to sex everywhere in GitHub, they say it's a harmless joke. Great!

Well, most people never see an ocean of tears until at least one drop of their own tear is in the ocean. We will survive! Women will! And if men enjoy pushing us away, they're loss. Women - however you guys might think of us - have so much to contribute. Goodbye Github. I'll find a better more conducive place to grow! Bye!

[akajains]

Karma is awesome. (y)

[johnnyezzell]

@4ever4jc - I bet you're back at github? lol