Naming a new module or other Perl project is difficult. Perhaps the process cannot be easy but it seems more difficult than necessary. Various people may be consulted but while they may be ready to express an opinion on a suggested name, they are less motivated to originate one. I believe it is a circular dependency: A specific name arouses a specific interest; an interested party discusses one name and perhaps suggests another. I'd like to look for an independent way to inject name suggestions and get the cycle started.
The required data is at hand: CPAN itself, in the form of POD. Each module describes itself and while this is not perfect, it's good and it's available. My concept has the projector of a new module *begin* by describing his project as best he can, in a plain English text file, preferably as POD for the imagined module. This "search text" can then be compared with the POD database and a list of *existing*, related modules generated. That list may serve as a starting point for the projector to select a name or two to submit to closer, human examination. As a trivial side effect, if the search text includes a tentative name for the new project and the name is already in use, this will be flagged. As a more significant effect, if the search text matches any existing module *too* closely, it may be taken as a sign that the new project so closely duplicates existing effort that the projector might better consider collaboration. A byproduct of this service is an alternate method of locating modules for direct use. Both Google and CPAN search have limitations. I'd love to discuss the technical aspects but first, like all projects, this one requires a name (and is not yet available to suggest one for itself!) So, please, take a moment to think about this; the sooner you offer an acceptable name, the sooner you will have to deal with fewer requests of the same sort. -- -Xiong
