New name for annotations

[carsakiller]

Hello! 👋

There has been some talk about changing how we refer to the annotations used by this language server. They are inspired by EmmyLua annotations — however, since v3, they have no longer been compatible.

Everyone's input is welcome on deciding on the new name so I have created this poll to decide between a bunch of suggested names.

EDIT:
It is looking like LuaCats is the winner 🙂

[CppCXY]

I think all the names are ugly, maybe now is not a good time to vote.

[carsakiller]

I don't disagree, but I don't think we will be able to find a pretty name that is easily recognizable as being associated with this language server. I also don't want to give them some random name that will appear to have no association with the server, as the annotations are dependent on the development of this server.

Many good annotations names are already taken and after 2 weeks of trying to get suggestions, I didn't find anything better.

[sumneko]

I don't think people enter the Annotations when searching, so LLS is not a good choice.

[nocksock]

Just to throw in my 2 cents here:

I always forget how they're called, so when I want to look something up, I rather search for "sumneko lua lsp" and then click myself to the docs. I never think of "Annotations".

I believe something like Lua Type Hints would be better, or even Lua Comment Types - since that is what I immediately think of when I search for the docs and was my starting query, when I wanted to look up how to write them for the very first time. Something that's less like a "brand", but more what ppl would actually search for.

[carsakiller]

Sumneko has asked to not have their name in the name for the annotations. This shouldn't be much of a problem though, as if you search sumneko [pretty much anything], you still end up here.

Hmm. Maybe Lua Type Annotations or simply LuaTyped? The annotations do a lot more than just typing, but it is more memorable.

[numToStr]

Taking inspiration from other language, javascript has jsdoc and rust has rustdoc. We should refrain from including LSP server in the name and Annotations is quite a big word.

I think LuaTypeDoc could be an option. I also thought LuaDoc or ldoc but unfortunately those names are already taken :)

Edit: You can further expand the name as Type refers to type-hints/type-annotations, and Doc refers to code documentation which is the main purpose of adding comments.

[Rouneq]

I happen to like "Annotations" since that's how I refer to them, but I concede my approach isn't common. So...

I'd prefer Lua Type Annotations for the full name. LuaTypeDoc or LuaTyped as the short.

All that said, I recommend including emmylua in the meta data. They may be divergent now, but EmmyLua was (and still is) around for a long time. People know it.

[sumneko]

Lua Comment and Type System, short named LuaCats 😼

[sumneko]

Lua Comment and Type System, short named LuaCats 😼

[carsakiller]

I have updated the poll to add the newly suggested names. This has unfortunately, yet understandably, removed all previous votes 🥴.

[lucastrvsn]

As "lua" means "moon" in portuguese, we should call it "sol" (means "sun") 🌞 🌚

[sumneko]

Here already has a famous project related to Lua: https://github.com/ThePhD/sol2

[bew]

Here another idea: LuaNotation

I think it has a nice double reading:

• contraction of Lua Annotation
• concat of Lua and Notation, which I think is still a nice word for roughly the same thing, a way to write code annotations

---

I'm sorry @sumneko, but LuaCats looks a bit like a joke to me, not a spec name that can grow as a real spec used in many 'professional'/robust tooling (if we take the idea a bit far).
(if you know concepts/specs that have funny names that actually took off I'd be interested 👀)