GHC Logo

[John Cotton Ericson]

Yeah I think the old "functional programming is slow" memes died off 
about when the rest of the industry went on its JavaScript bender, so I 
am not really worried about the negative connotations of turtles.

The positive connotations of turtles sounds very good to me. Besides safety,

  *   the longevity of at least giant tortoises also speaks to GHC's
    rare ability to stay at the vanguard of research while still being
    wildly used.
  * Their ability to walk and swim speaks to the diverse backends that
    can be attached to GHC (NCG, LLVM, GHCJS, Asterius, Clash's, etc.).
  * Even the fable, from which the slowness myth comes from I guess,
    goes well with "avoid success at all costs".

Conversely I am not a fan of choosing a Cat. I like Cats fine in real 
life, don't get be wrong, but Cats are so popular on the internet that 
this would be the the unmarked animal choice, with no clear connotations 
or memorability. I think that would be the juvenile choice, per Ben's 
slippery slope.

Foxes are nice, but I think Firefox has that for life.

Octopuses are alright. GitHub's Octocat doesn't doesn't pose nearly as 
much of a problem as Firefox for foxes. Still, while Octopuses are 
smart, they are usually solitary and mischievous. GHC is very much a 
long-term group effort, belying the solitary connotation, and I 
certainly hope any compiler I use isn't mischievous!

A turtle for a compiler is a bold choice that indicates our values, 
confidence that the performance of compiled code is immune to cheap 
derision, and humor.

John

P.S. The funny patterns on turtles' backs could be made of lambdas?...

P.P.S. and yes, if it does compel us to fix rampant list appending just 
so we're fast on all fronts, that would be nice too :).

On 9/2/20 11:47 AM, Ben Gamari wrote:
> Richard Eisenberg <rae at richarde.dev> writes:
>
>> I'm oddly drawn to the idea of a turtle -- except that turtles are
>> slow. But animals are cute. Maybe something involving a fox, given
>> that foxes can be clever? Octopuses are also known to be very clever,
>> but maybe GitHub has octopuses covered.
>>
> In general I'm rather neutral on the logo question. There is a fine line
> between "juvenile" (which may detract from the project's credibility in
> the eyes of some) and "cute" (which I think is universally a Good
> Thing); the current rather boring logo was a quick attempt to satisfy
> the need for some logo while recognizing that I lack the artistic
> ability to walk that line. I don't think it's a bad logo but it's quite
> dull and far from being a *good* logo. I do hope someone steps up to do
> better.
>
> Logos aside, I do feel the need to correct the record here: you
> clearly have not seen how quickly a turtle can move when offered banana
> or shrimp. They can be quite quick when suitably incentivized!
>
> Cheers,
>
> - Ben
>
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