Yet another

From HandWiki
Short description: Idiomatic qualifier used in the name of programs

A naming convention as a form of computer humour[1] especially among playful programmers, yet another is often abbreviated ya, Ya, or YA in the prefix of an acronym or backronym.

This humorous prefix is an idiomatic qualifier in the name of a computer program, organization, or event for the intention of elevating love and interest for something that seems confessedly unoriginal or unnecessarily repeated.[2] This is a programmer practical joke which is an allusion to the culture of programmer esteem for perfection as seen by software programming principles such as "Keep It Simple Stupid" (KISS) and "Don't Repeat Yourself" (DRY).

Stephen C. Johnson is credited with establishing the naming convention in the late 1970s when he named his compiler-compiler yacc (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler), since he felt there were already numerous compiler-compilers in circulation at the time.

Outside of computing, the YA construct has appeared in astronomy, where YAMOO means Yet Another Map of Orion.[3]

Yet another...

See also

  • Another (disambiguation)
  • All articles starting with "Yet Another ..." or "Yet another ..."
  • Reinventing the wheel

References

  1. "hacker humor". http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker-humor.html. 
  2. Eric S. Raymond, ed (29 Dec 2003). "Yet Another". The on-line hacker Jargon File. http://catb.org/jargon/html/Y/Yet-Another.html. 
  3. O’Callaghan, Jonathan (2 October 2023). "The Orion Nebula Is Full of Impossible Enigmas That Come in Pairs". New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/science/orion-nebula-webb-planets.html. 
  4. "Yahoo! - Company History". Yahoo! Inc.. http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html. "The name Yahoo! is supposed to stand for 'Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle' but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos." 
  5. Paul Gil (2 July 2019). "What Does "Yahoo" Stand For?". Lifewire. Dotdash. https://www.lifewire.com/what-does-yahoo-stand-for-2483337. "Yahoo stands for 'Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.'" 
  6. "What does "Yandex" mean?". History of Yandex. Yandex. https://yandex.com/company/history/1993. 
  7. "Yet Another Society on WikiWikiWeb". http://wiki.c2.com/?YetAnotherSociety.