Repository names

[hcferguson]

Two pieces of advice for avoiding later headaches:

• google the repository (and package name, if different).
  • If it already exists consider choosing a different name
  • if the repository acronym can have offensive meanings in other contexts try something different

[arfon]

👍 that's good advice. We should consider adding this to https://github.com/spacetelescope/style-guides/blob/master/guides/github-repositories.md#naming

[eteq]

Also, check whatever the canonical "where I get things" is for your software language. I.e., pypi for Python, CPAN for R, etc. Sometimes the package name in github and the software package name don't match, and it's good to avoid when possible.

[sosey]

... you should probably check GitHub regardless of language because packages are not always uploaded to the server repositories, but there can be a list of really similarly named things that can confuse people searching for the correct package. Case in point: https://github.com/search?q=%22asdf%22, lots of asdf repositories that don't all relate to each other.

[pllim]

I am not sure whether I should open a new issue or not but I am confused about the recommendation of "hyphen" over "underscore" for repository naming (for a Python package). The hyphen gives me a headache from time to time, because as a package name, it is some-thing, but inside a Python session, it is imported as some_thing.