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25 March 2018

Splootysplotty: Open Source Alternative to Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky

(This is a satire article that is critiquing the common naming scheme in some open source projects. See this section below for more details.)

Welcome to my fantastic open source project named Splootysplotty. It is easier now than ever to Sploot the Splott.

It is an open source improvement on the legacy software of Jabberwocky 1.0 written long ago. It is comparable to any of these projects: Dalo, Jotts, or Lablem.

I’m very excited for you to use Splootysplotty. Below is my guide on the problem it solves as well as the why and how to use it.

Splootysplotty has a few core concepts and ideas that you need to understand. I decided to take these common concepts and instead give them new names to make it easier to understand my fantastic open source project.

You’ll have to memorize what these terms are but that’s okay because they are related to the theme of Splootysplotty and it makes it so much more fun. I’m sure you will appreciate it when you start to learn this fantastic open source project.

Splootysplotty Guide

'Twas haplex and kuffle problem.

Projects Dalo and Jotts voluck.

It's not folazy as Lablem,

But merely fosts toontruck. "Just Sploot and Splott!” I say ageel.

Frispy code, interface that’s sweeze.

Need not go and retrend the wheel,

Chornings ne'er zolter than these. To Sploot the Splott, use a Sorzer,

Contigged to process jobaley.

Sorzers are but many Vorder,

So bostruct it gosalee. We soload it from the Koltam,

Where all the cakedent Codelets be.

Run a Doclot with Luds param,

But not with the Bapaley. Beep, boop! Beep, boop! And loop and loop

The sussy data is contruced.

And with the code, that's on the node

The Malicon is produced. Sploot of the Splott, solmedds the lot,

Zassy, acey, all the features.

O gosly devs! Happy! Jubsot!

Heed the ease procedures. 'Twas haplex and kuffle problem.

Projects Dalo and Jotts voluck.

It's not folazy as Lablem,

But merely fosts toontruck.

Let’s Have a Talk, Open Source

But for real, if you create a new project just name things what they are.

We already know what a dependency is. We know what a template is. We know what a function is. We know what things are, so just name them accordingly.

Choosing names that obscure the concepts and constructs just increases the barrier to entry of understanding a project.

Coding is the easier part of technology but working with people and communicating is the hard part. Let’s not make it worse by using Jabberwocky Terminology.

Wall of Shame

Let’s collect various examples of this in current open source projects.

If you think of any more, please check out and contribute to the:

Thank You!

For more brillig insight and chortling joy, folound me on Twitter.

Note: Credit to Chris Kruse, Chris Mueller, and Conor Gilsenan for critiques and criticism. Their compelling commentary on the concepts cemented the couplets convincingness.