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What's in a name?

You might have noticed I'm using the executable name “h” in my samples.  This is the working name for our command line executable, and it's a short version of “Hatteras”.  We don't have a final name for the executable yet.  I've gotten accustomed to typing “h”, so I hope the final name isn't something like “VSTSSCC.exe” :)

Anyone have suggestions for a cmd line executable name?

Published Monday, July 12, 2004 10:08 AM by JasonBa

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Monday, July 12, 2004 10:56 AM by Andy

# re: What's in a name?

If you rename it 'j' you're one step closer to being a coder's best friend, because although 'h' is short you have to move your right index away from the home position :)
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:00 AM by Korby Parnell's WebLog

# Renaming H.EXE

Monday, July 12, 2004 11:15 AM by DavidC

# re: What's in a name?

hat.exe?
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:16 AM by rename it 'sca.exe'

# re: What's in a name?

S(ource)C(ontrol)A(pplication)

and pronounce it [sk?] like i would pronounce in Italian language

:) Luke
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:21 AM by Zirakzigil

# re: What's in a name?

ts.exe
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:30 AM by Ron Buckton

# re: What's in a name?

"vault", "sc", "scc"
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:46 AM by Barry Dorrans

# re: What's in a name?

sourceREALLYsafe? (as opposed to the not so safe, lets corrupt your tree, SourceSafe <g>)

Whatever it is, just make sure you get the SDC Build Tools guys to add support for it in their MSBuild extensions.
Monday, July 12, 2004 11:59 AM by Michael Russell

# re: What's in a name?

Since I'm guessing that VSTS's source control is at least in part based on Product Studio and Source Depot, why not just use "sd." That way, if it's command-compatible with Source Depot, you can actually drop it into some other teams existing auto-build scripts and the like and have a wider test harness base.
Monday, July 12, 2004 12:07 PM by timts

# re: What's in a name?

hate.exe for obvious reason
ha.exe

dont like hr.exe since it sounds like human resource
Monday, July 12, 2004 12:10 PM by thomas woelfer

# re: What's in a name?

CommandLineToolThatDoesNotHaveARealNameYetButWeAreWorkingOnIt~1stVersionBuildInsertBuildNumberHere.exe

WM_<G>
thomas woelfer
Monday, July 12, 2004 12:27 PM by Luc Cluitmans

# re: What's in a name?

Well, call it 'I' on days you feel egoistic, and 'U' on days you feel altruistic... :-)

But more seriously, I guess you want a name that doesn't have too many letters, but more than one. How about 'it' 'the', if you want to use valid english words? You will not be able to turn those into Registered Trademarks, but so will noone else.
Monday, July 12, 2004 1:17 PM by John S.

# re: What's in a name?

another vote for sc
Monday, July 12, 2004 2:42 PM by Jerry Dennany

# re: What's in a name?

I vote for "scc.exe" (or "sc.exe" for the following reasons:

1. scc is close on the keyboard, and if you are command-lining a lot, that's nice.

2. Long file names for command line applications that are frequently used really suck.

3. "sca" as suggested above isn't bad, until you add a command line with 't'. then, you're just asking for people to make fun of your product.
Monday, July 12, 2004 4:34 PM by Steve Hall

# re: What's in a name?

How about "SCM.exe" for "Source Code Manager" (or the legacy "Software Configuration Management" or "Software Configuration Manager") ?
Monday, July 12, 2004 4:48 PM by Steve Hall

# re: What's in a name?

And the server-side could be euphemistically called "SCMS" (SCM Server).
Monday, July 12, 2004 5:53 PM by Srikanth Bhakthan

# re: What's in a name?

How about SourceUtilityManager(SUM.exe)?
& for SEERVER-SIDE...
SourceServerNavigator(SSN.exe) ?!
Monday, July 12, 2004 7:50 PM by Rob Caron's Blog

# New Team System Blog Posts - 2004-07-12

Monday, July 12, 2004 10:13 PM by James Manning

# re: What's in a name?

Honestly? As much as I hate it, tf.exe

- we're calling it Team Foundation System
- name shouldn't relate to "Hatteras" at all
- since we're (source control) the only part of TFS that has a command-line, tf.exe is fine

Why is sc.exe or sca.exe or anything like that bad? Because it's the same logic that leads to other source control systems having the same kind of names on their command-lines :) Honestly, if I saw "sc.exe" running, even if I figure out it's a source control system, it doesn't tell me which one. A name like tf.exe at least is related to the name of our product :)

Also, the further our name is from ss.exe the better, to make it more obvious we're a different system. No single letter (t? f?) makes sense IMHO, but tf seems good enough and is a decent tradeoff between length and description.

Also, Michael - VSTS's source control is new and totally written from scratch - it's not based on source depot at all - there are tons of differences in semantics between the two, and sometimes I like the SD way better, sometimes I like the Hatteras way better. Reusing Source Depot, porting its DB to Yukon and packaging that was considered, but honestly, the more I learn about Source Depot internals, the more I'm glad we didn't. It's not that Source Depot is bad, but any software system is going to have some legacy with it. By writing Hatteras from scratch, we get to leverage the .NET 2.0 framework from day one (and, yes, it's been great to target :) - developing for .NET 2.0 and Yukon is a great thing indeed!
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 8:57 AM by Stuart

# re: What's in a name?

Every time I hear the name of this system it's different - Team System, Team Foundation System, Team System Team Foundation (!), ...

I'd go for "ts" as the command name, because "Visual Studio Team System" is the variation of the name I hear most commonly and also the one I dislike least ;)

"tf" is tinyfugue to us old unix MUDers...
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 11:31 AM by Chris

# re: What's in a name?

While the PS and/or SD connection is an insightful guess, it's not quite accurate.

There's a lot of (reasonable) conjecture out there that Hatteras is built on the VSS and/or Source Depot codebases.

This is true, at best, in a "spiritual" sense (Any X-Com fans out there will spot that reference, I think), for Hatteras.

When the team had tough design decisions to make, VSS and Source Depot were both looked at in the "Well, how did THEY solve this problem?" context. That doesn't mean Hatteras blindly does what they did; just that we to learn from our history and previous experiences, right/wrong, good/bad, different, and everywhere in between.

But, in general, it would be most accurate to see where Hatteras reuses *features*, or *approaches*, and (where VS is concerned), the source code provider interface (and properly so). Assuming we built on the VSS (or SD) codebase may lead to bad assumptions that Hatteras acts a certain way because these products act that way.

Hopefully, we're only the same as them in the 'good' ways :)
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 11:35 AM by Chris

# re: What's in a name?

Oh, and while I think "vstssccc.exe" is probably the shortest 'canonical' name (Visual Studio Team System Source Control Client), my current realistic vote is for tfc (team foundation client).

I'm wary of any name that's generic (like scc), because if every source code control system out there did that, we'd have a big mess, and the exception (standards-implemtations like telnet, ftp) does not apply.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 3:42 PM by Buck Hodges

# re: What's in a name?

Stuart, to clarify the whole thing is called Team System (Visual Studio Team System 2005). Team Foundation is a component of Team System. Team Foundation includes source control and work item tracking.

I vote for calling it "tfsc" because it's only four letters and is reasonably descriptive (Team Foundation Source Control).
Wednesday, August 04, 2004 8:40 AM by Rossen Blagoev (MCS)

# re: What's in a name?

Maybe it's already too late, but why not 'tfs.exe'? Since the acronym TFS will be used sall over the place, it seems logical that the utility is named the same way, even though tfc.exe is probably more accurate and even though not all of teh TFS functionality will be accessible via tfs.exe/tfc.exe. (Maybe the other teams can add their functionality to tfs.exe in future versions.)
Tuesday, September 28, 2004 1:15 PM by Jason Barile

# What's in a name - redux

Tuesday, September 28, 2004 4:01 PM by Jason Barile

# What's in a name - redux

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