About #aim

Who's responsible for this?

What's with the name?

This was written by Chris at the outset, in July 2005:

Originally, this project was supposed to be a frontend to Gaim, an open-source IM client based on the GTK windowing library. That didn't last, but it was the inspiration for the name.

When I was coming up with a name for this project, I wanted to reflect both the fact that it is a frontend to Gaim and the fact that the new interface is written in C#. So, I combined the two phrases. Pretty simple.

A name is no good if it can't be pronounced, so I went back to my UNIX shell scripting roots. All shell scripts start with some variation on this line:
  #!/bin/sh
It's called the "shebang" line, for the first two characters: the hash mark and the exclaimation mark. The exclaimation mark is pronounced "bang," leaving the hash mark to be pronounced "sh"...and thus, #aim is pronounced "sh-aim," as in the English word "shame."

The name allows for clever word play (such as the project's tagline, "Be proud of your #aim"), and it's sufficiently nerdy to redeem myself among the *nix people who feel that GTK and other portable windowing toolkits are the height of greatness. They aren't. You can't beat a native interface, which is why this project exists (or at least it was).