Matthew Lang

A favourite saying of mine is Phil Karlton’s quote about hard things to do in computer science.

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.

— Phil Karlton

I can’t say that cache invalidation has given me major issues in the past but naming things has always been a challenge. If I was to take this beyond the realms of programming though, I would say that naming anything is a difficult thing to do.

My portfolio of web applications include DailyMuse, Markcase and WriteAbout. I find it hard to get away from the compound naming theme. It’s just a way of naming things that I stick with. It’s easy to do, but it feels like it lacks imagination. I would love to come up wth alternatives that don’t follow this convention but everything I have come up with didn’t feel like a good fit.

The other thing I don’t like about compounded product names is deciding whether to upper-case the second word or leave it as lower-case. GitHub’s branding is clear that they favour upper-casing the second word, but there are examples of other brand names that are made of two words that just user a lower-case word for the second word. Take Feedbin for example.

For my bookmarking service, Markcase, I choose to use the lower-cased form instead of MarkCase, and I have to say I prefer it.

I’m working on something that is bigger than anything I’ve worked on in the past. I’d like it to become my full-time gig eventually so it’s quite important to get the naming of it right. I do have a name for it, but I’m torn between whether to use the upper-case form or the lower-case for.

I am edging towards the lower-case form. It reads easier and looks better in the different styles that I have for it.

I find all aspects of branding and marketing quite a challenge. I’m creative to an extent, but I’m definitely not well-versed enough to launch a huge marketing campaign. To get my product off the ground though, I’m taking little steps in executing it and learning as I go. I might not always get it right to begin with, but adapting the product and the marketing as I go, is better than not doing anything at all.

An interesting look at choosing the right messaging app.

I use iMessage as my default messaging app, closesly followed by WhatsApp. From time to time I use Instagram’s built-in messaging as well, but that’s a rare occurence and always reserved for one-liners from friends and family.

Ideally I’d like to be using Signal as my default messaging app, but getting others on board with it is a problem. Most people I know are not aware of the privacy implications of most messaging apps they are using, so they just use what everyone else is using. The big problem here is that many of these now fall under the control of Facebook.

CJ Chilver’s reminds us that we can reduce our anxiety by reducing the number of inboxes that we have.

There’s a lot of productivity advice out there about what to do to organize and process your many inboxes. But the best rule is often forgotten: have as few of them as possible.

— Eliminate Extra Inboxes

I still use Feedbin on a daily basis to filter for the important stuff, and I even follow a few accounts on Twitter using it.

The biggest benefit I get from using Feedbin is that I’m in control over what I choose to see and read. That’s a big positive in a time where platforms are pushing algorithms that decide for us what we should read.