"Fake Root?"

[rob-ross]

Are you married to the "fake root?" I don't mean as a concept; as a concept I think it's a great idea. I've had the same situation where I wanted to do something with the root node but could only work with its children off the bat. I think this is also why most JSON files I've seen wrap the data object with a single member outer object, so it can have a name instead of just the anonymous top level root object. So it's a quite useful feature when working with JSON data.

But as far as the name goes, I think from a marketing perspective, there might be more compelling terms. I don't think that "fake root" has the gravitas for the job. :) Of course this is purely a subjective opinion. But here are some possible other terms I'm just throwing out here.

- meta-root
- super-root
- hyper-root
- over-root
- uber-root
- ultra-root
- up-root, upper-root
- prime-root (sounds better as 'root prime'). Also has association with formal math, e.g., theta, theta` (theta prime)
    Could be confused with prime numbers though.
- top-root
- apex-root

Not a huge deal, but I thought I'd mention it now while I'm thinking of it.

• Rob

[jg-rp]

I'm not particularly attached to "fake root" and would be happy to change it. It is a play on the fakeroot command in Linux.

I quite like "pseudo-root" as an alternative. As a prefix, Wiktionary defines pseudo- as

False; not genuine; fake.

What do you think?

[rob-ross]

That sounds perfectly cromulent!