Re: Wiki user guide

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Mon, 2006-07-10 at 08:55 +0100, Joachim Noreiko wrote:
> --- Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org> wrote:
> > Now here's everybody's first chance to get in on the
> > fun:
> > The code name for the project-as-a-whole is Project
> > Mallard.
> > This is sort of an inside poke at DocBook. 
> 
> Ohhhhhhhh.
> NOW I get it.
> I thought Mallard was just a reference to speed (the
> steam engine). In a British accent, 'Doc' and 'Duck'
> don't sound the same.

They don't sound exactly the same in American English either.
The inside poke is actually much more esoteric than a play
on words.  As can be seen here:

http://docbook.org/

The animal used on the front of the DocBook book is a wood
duck, Aix sponsa[1].  While nobody quite knows what goes on
in the minds of Edie Freedman and company when selecting an
animal for a book[2], it seems likely that the choice was
due to the near-homonym of duck/doc.

I just picked another duck: the mallard, Anas platyrhynchos[3].
If I can apply retro-reasoning, the wood duck is fat and ugly,
while the mallard is about as beautiful as a duck can get.
But then, if I were really looking for a beautiful water bird,
I'd have chosen a heron or some such.  Mallard made for a good
project name, better than any other duck I know of.

Joachim, nobody knows about your Mallard steam engine over on
this side of the ocean.  After reading the Wikipedia entry,
though, I think it makes a fine namesake.  Can I rewrite the
history of my naming decision?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_duck
[2] http://www.oreilly.com/news/ediemals_0400.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard

--
Shaun